Last week the kids were in Chicago staying with Grandma. On Tuesday night I got a text from Skyler:

Can i die my hair blonde

I have never been one of those parents who really cares if my kids dye their hair. Keaton got blonde highlights a few years back. Last summer we dyed Caleb’s mohawk blonde (or, um, brassy). If dyeing in their hair is the worst thing they want to do then I’ll consider myself lucky. So I had no objections.

Skyler BEFORE the blonde hair with her brother at the parade on June 26th. Skyler performed in the parade with her cheer team.

However, there is no way I was going to spend $65 on a professional dye job for a 10-year-old. So I did some research. And by research I mean I asked a friend who’s recently dyed her hair blonde. She told me she did a Google search and found out you need to bleach and then put on a blue toner to get out the orange.

So I went home and scoured the internet for some tips. I read articles. I watched YouTube videos. I memorized photos. Who needs beauty school when you have the internet?

Friday afternoon I headed over to Sally Beauty to pick up supplies. The clerk pointed out the bleach and the toners and I spent the next 20 minutes studying the different brands, eyeballing the samples, reading the directions on the back of bottles and trying to decide between blue toner or blue-violet toner. I settled on some powdered bleach, 20 Pure White developer, and blue toner.

Around 7:30pm last night the kids finally got home. After almost two weeks without them it was awesome to see their huge smiles and be on the receiving end of their big, warm hugs.

Within an hour the boys were off playing with their friends, Keaton’s girlfriend was over, and Skyler was ready to dye her hair.

I went to mix the bleach and discovered you have to add the developer in my ounces. I have nothing that measures things in ounces. I was trying to decide whether or not I should wing it (um…that would be a big fat NO with me) or go to the store for something. Then I realized the toner was in a 2 oz. container. So I dumped out the toner and used that as my measuring tool. Using my noodle thar, yo.

I mixed up a small amount of bleach and went to town on Skyler’s hair. I was such a wild woman I kept dropping plops of bleach on the bathroom floor. Clearly I’m a true professional.

I got the bleach on her hair, put a processing cap on her head (that is no different from a shower cap, so why it’s not called a shower cap I have no idea), and got out the blow dryer. Google says that applying heat makes it work faster. Since I don’t have one those fancy hair dryer chair things you see in salons I figured the blow dryer would do. But, dude, standing there blow drying her hair for 10 minutes sucks big hairy donkey balls. So eventually I just gave up and told her we’d wait it out.

After 20 minutes I realized we could be waiting all night. I obviously didn’t coat her hair well enough with the bleach.

So we rinsed, blow dryed, and repeated.

The first attempt with the bleach lightened the hair, but it definitely wasn’t blonde…YET.

This time I mixed up a much bigger batch of bleach. I smothered her hair with the goop. We put another shower processing cap on. And waited.

About 15 minutes later I took a peek. And it was finally starting to go blonde. It was brassy. But blonde nonetheless.

A few minutes later we ripped off the cap, shampooed and deep conditioned her hair. I applied to toner. And we waited. It was really, really, really brassy, so (being a complete beauty novice) I wasn’t totally convinced this blue toner would take it all out. But I had high hopes.

After 15 minutes I could really see the difference. The orange was totally gone. All that was left was the bloney-yellow. That’s when I started kicking myself for not going with the blue-violet toner. But you live and your learn.

It still seemed a little dark, but I was ok with dark blonde.

Again we shampooed it and deep conditioned it. I towel dried it and it looked lighter. Then I got the blow dryer back out and completely dried it. When dried it looked a lot lighter. And Skyler LOVED it.

The final look. It’s definitely blonde. And Skyler LOVES it.

I still think it might be a little too yellow, but I’m pretty impressed with my beauty skillz. Plus Skyler thinks it’s awesome. And that’s all that matters.

Skyler didn’t tell anybody but me that she wanted to dye her hair. So when Caleb saw it his chin practically dropped to the floor. “WOW,” he exclaimed.

Spencer said, “Where is my sister?” He was a little shocked too.

Spencer and Caleb with Skyler and her new blonde hair. Beautiful!

Tonight we’re going to dinner. I can’t wait to see my mom and grandma’s reaction. Should be interesting.

Thursday night Skyler, Spencer and Caleb were sitting at the kitchen table filling out their valentine’s for their Valentine’s Day parties on Friday. They would have done their valentine’s sooner, but I didn’t buy them until around 7pm Thursday night. You know me and my habit of procrastination.

So anyway, they were sitting at the kitchen table filling out their valentine’s and I was making myself some Kraft Shells and Cheese (’cause yum!) when a conversation ensued. A conversation that started out as an innocent talk about twins and ended with an explanation of vasectomies, sex and periods. [I'm telling you. There is a never a dull moment in the Bean household.]

Caleb was filling out a card for Spencer, a kid in his class, when it dawned on him that Spencer, a kid in his class, has the same name as Spencer, his brother. He said, “Spencer, Spencer in my class likes football too. You could be twins. ‘Cause you’re identical.” This led in to a discussion about what it meant to be an identical twin and a fraternal twin.

And then somebody asked, “Are you going to have any more babies?”

I said, “No. We’re done having babies. We’re happy with our family just the way we are. You guys are all we need.”

Spencer begged, “But can’t we have just one more baby?”

“We can’t because Dad had a vasectomy,” I blurted out before I realized just how tricky that statement would be.

“What’s a vestomy?” asked Caleb.

I paused for a second and let out a nervous giggle. “A vasectomy? That’s when they cut a little tube in daddy’s private parts so daddy can’t make babies anymore.”

“Why does that mean he can’t make babies,” Caleb questioned.

“Well,” I stumbled, “it means the semen can’t get out to fertilize the egg. Do you know what semen is?”

Three sets of eyes stared blankly back at me so I continued, “Well a woman has ovaries and each month those ovaries produce an egg that goes down the fallopian tubes in to her uterus. When she has sex with her husband he releases semen that swims up and fertilizes that egg. If the egg gets fertilized then it grows in to a baby. If it doesn’t get fertilize then a woman has her period. Do you know what a period is?”

With a look of disgust on his face, Spencer said, “Yeah, it’s when she bleeds from her private parts.”

“Something like that,” I responded.

Caleb piped in, “Mom, you said some bad words.”

“What words were those,” I asked.

“S-E-X,” Caleb spelled.

“Sex isn’t a bad word. Either is penis or vagina. They are just body parts. When you are talking about your body it’s ok to use those words. Just don’t use them as an insult. Like don’t call somebody a penis,” I informed.

Caleb said, “Yeah, like when somebody says ‘suck my dick’ that’s bad.”

“Yes it is. I don’t want to hear that at all,” I said.

We chatted a little more and I asked them them if they had any other questions. Spencer was still stuck on the vasectomy issue.

“But you can still have a baby,” Spencer said.

“I could, but I’d have to have a baby with some other guy and I would never do that,” I said.

Caleb said, “Yeah, cause that’s cheating and that’s bad.”

Skyler chirped in, “Yeah, that’s just rude.”

Spencer said, “Ah man. But I really wanted a little brother.”

“You have a little brother,” I informed him. “You have Caleb.”

“Yeah, but I wanted a baby brother,” he whined.

“Well they don’t stay little forever, you know. We aren’t having anymore. But Keaton and Justis might have a baby in a few years. In 10 years Keaton will be 25. He could get married and have a baby by then. Then you’d be an uncle.”

Then the kids were figuring out how old they would be in 10 years. Skyler & Spencer would be 20. Caleb would be 17.

“By then all of you will be moving out of the house. And I’ll be lonely,” I said.

Caleb said, “I might live with you for a long time.”

Skyler said, “I’m living with you until I find a man.”

Spencer said, “Well…I’ll come visit you.”

It’s these intimate conversations and hard questions I treasure most with my kids. When I was younger I was always so embarrassed whenever my parents would talk to me about sex. I figured it would be hard for me to talk to my own kids about it. But it’s not. I would rather my kids come to me when they have questions so I know they are getting the truth. And I’m glad they feel comfortable enough to ask me the questions that are on their minds. I hope we continue to stay this close as they move in to the teenage years.

Last night we took the kids to the local community theater production of Annie. It really brought back some memories for me. Annie was the first show I saw on Broadway and I fell in love with it. I wanted to be Annie from that point forward. As I got older I realized I couldn’t sing. Or dance. So Broadway probably wasn’t my thing, but I still love the theater to this day.

We are season ticket holders to local community theater. As season ticket holders we get coupons for free sodas. Last night I handed a coupon to each kid and told them to go get whatever they wanted.

After a few minutes Keaton came back with a soda. And Spencer was following behind with tears starting to form in his eyes and a pout on his lips.

“What happened?” we asked.

I figured Keaton must have done something to him…like usual. But actually this time Keaton didn’t do anything. And that was the problem.

“I was standing there and they helped Keaton but they wouldn’t help me,” Spencer sobbed.

The problem is Spencer is pretty shy. So they probably didn’t realize Spencer wanted anything because he wouldn’t speak up.

I said, “You’ve got to tell them what you want. Go back and get yourself a soda.”

Spencer didn’t want to go by himself. He was too scared. So Keaton grabbed Spencer’s ticket and went to go buy him a soda. But before he walked off he made a snide comment to Spencer…like usual.

Spencer pushed Keaton and Keaton almost fell over the row of chairs in front of us.

We all yelled at Spencer to knock it off and watch his temper.

“But he called me antisocial!” Spencer bellowed.

Grandma said, “So? That’s not a bad word.”

Spencer said, “It means I’m not good with people.”

And apparently that’s a bad word in Spencer’s dictionary. But at least he knows what it means.

Ever since I can remember I dreamed about growing up and having twins. My great-grandmother was a twin. She was Ruby and her twin sister was Ruth. I think I had heard that twins run in families so since my Bubby was a twin, of course, I would have twins too.

When I was just a child, like many little girls, I imagined my adult self married with babies; my twin babies. They would be two girls and I was going to name them Hannah and Hailey.

So when I was 25, pregnant, sick as a dog and my doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to “rule out the possibility of twins” I knew exactly how the ultrasound would turn out. I set up my ultrasound appointment and went straight to the book store to buy a book on being pregnant with twins. I was that confident.

The day we had our ultrasound Lee and I looked up at the monitor as the ultrasound tech said, “Well here’s why you’re so nauseous. You’re having twins.” Lee nearly fell out of his chair. But I wasn’t shocked at all. I was excited.

However, I completely underestimated the double tween and teen angst that comes with twins.

Skyler & Spencer couldn’t be more different starting with that fact that Skyler is a girl and Spencer is a boy (no Hannah and Hailey which was fine with me because after 20 years I was sick and tired of those name). Skyler is very social (an extrovert all the way). Spencer is pretty quiet (an introvert like his mom).

At the Sock Hop last night Skyler was hollering out to everybody, waving and fluttering around like her usual social butterfly self. One boy in their class, Joseph, walked by Spencer and Skyler yelled out “Hi Joseph!”

But he didn’t hear her so Spencer turned around and said, “Joseph, Skyler wants you.” Joseph took this to mean that Skyler wanted his hot 4th grade bod and seemed a bit stunned.

Spencer said, “NOOO. She just wants to talk to you.”

Joseph said, “Oh” and walked over to Skyler so she could say Hi to him.

As Joseph walked away Spencer said, “Skyler you know all the boys in our class think you’re annoying.”

I looked over and Skyler to gage how she was going to take this news. Sometimes she’s just blows off her brother. And other times she gets upset. This was one of those upset times.

She crinkled up her nose, pursed her lips and started to cry.

She knows Spencer says things like this just to get her riled up. But she always takes them to heart anyway. Spencer likes to tell her “I don’t like you” to which Skyler responds, “Yes you do. You love me.”

So there we were in the middle of the school cafeteria. Skyler in tears. Spencer looking all smug.

I said, “Skyler you know Spencer just says stuff like that to make you mad. Joseph wouldn’t have walked over here to talk to you if he thought you were annoying, right?”

I think in the mean time Lee was giving Spencer the evil eye so Spencer was giving a very unbelievable “I’m sorry Skyler” speech.

But Skyler realized I was right. Joseph would have just ignored her if he thought she was annoying. [Well no more annoying than any other girl in the 4th grade class. Aren't all girls annoying to boys in the 4th grade?] So she cheered back up and went off to shake her booty.

They’re only 10. We have years and years of these little battles to deal with. I’m going to need much, much more wine.