Morning Shave - Slice of Life December 17

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My middle school class has been sharing the books we've read throughout the year on the class blog.  The past few weeks we have been sharing poetry on our blogs.  This week, we started writing and sharing Slices of Life!  It has been wonderful to see them writing and sharing and I'm excited as we move forward as a reading a writing community!

Morning Shave

The bathroom door opens and Clara squints into the bright light.  Her hand reaches up and lowers the lights with the dimmer switch to just above dark. “It hurts my eyes Dada,” she states.    

Towel around my waist, condensation on the mirror, and the cold bedroom air seeping through the open door, I usher Clara in as we continue a ritual that is becoming familiar to both of us.

First, I close the door to save some of the heat from my shower and keep the light out of my wife’s eyes as she dozes in bed.  Clara climbs up on the toilet seat and searches through the cabinet for my shaving cream.  I surreptitiously brighten the lights a few lumens and ask her about her dreams.

I go through the motions of getting shaving cream put on my face and the razor out.  We both wonder how blue gel becomes white once it’s rubbed on my face.  After the first swipe, Clara wants to test how smooth my faces is, her finger gliding along the strip of skin devoid of shaving cream and whiskers on my right cheek.  I crank the lights up a little more and continue shaving. 

Like most men, I have a pattern to how I shave my face.  Clara knows it well enough to tell me where I should shave next and be mostly correct.  Once I’m done, she directs me where I need to wash the remnants of the shaving cream off my face, usually around each ear and under my nose. 

Once I pass her careful inspection, we steel ourselves for the colder air on the other side of the door and go to her room to choose clothes for the day.  This task can be the start of the typical child/parent struggles that lead to frustration, tears, timeouts (for both parties), being late, and continual conflict throughout the day.  But whether it is an easy day or one of the difficult ones, the morning shave is always familiar, cozy and smooth.