Bond’s Next New Nemesis – Mom

I may have implied in yesterday’s post that, once Dimples committed to the sport of synchronized swimming, everything was hunky dory.  Not so.

As you may know, synchronized swimmers practice with the aim of doing some sort of routine…that’s synchronized…while they swim.

During practice, they do a lot of laps to develop stamina, and they wear swim caps, goggles and nose clips.

During the actual routine, they wear elaborate costumes.  Sometimes with headpieces.  They wear nude-colored nose clips.

Notice I did not list goggles or swim caps as part of the performance wardrobe.

Yeah.

So, here’s a little known fact about synchronized swimming.  Remember all of those Esther Williams movies where she -

Oh yeah, you’re not old enough to remember those.  Neither am I, of course…

So, anyway, there’s a little secret these swimmers have to keeping their hair perfectly in place during a program.  Knoxing.

Yep.  My reaction, too.  What the…?

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I was assured.  “We just paint unflavored Knox gelatin on their hair and it solidifies and -”

WTF? What James Bond villain conjured up this stupid Goldfinger-ish torture?

Surprisingly, at Dimples first performance, the application of a dessert to my daughter’s tresses went off fairly smoothly.  More experienced moms took over, and deftly sculptured her hair into a tight bun before they lacquered it.  If you read my post about trying to diffuse my own hair, you will know how lucky Dimples was to escape my own attempts to try this sophisticated technique.

The two performances went well. I almost got over the makeup that made her look like a cross-dresser at a cabaret, and she almost got over not being able to wear her goggles.

Can’t imagine what I was so worked up about.

Then we got home at 9 pm and it was time to attack Fort Knox.

So, I was supposed to get my exhausted seven year old to stand in the shower while we tried to use lukewarm water (“not too hot, Mom!”) and shampoo to rinse the hardened plastic out of her hair.  Then the shampoo got in her eyes which we hadn’t cleaned of the makeup yet, and the wailing really started.  To any neighbor within a mile radius, it was quite apparent that I was viciously murdering my child.

After ten minutes, I gave up.  “We’ll do the rest tomorrow,” I said.

I really, really wish I had taken a picture of her the next morning.  With her hair still partially Knoxed, she looked a little like this…

Typical Bad Hair Day

Am I bad mom because I laughed?  Luckily a good nights sleep brought back her sense of humor, and she laughed too.

And if you feel like a laugh at the expense of synchronized swimming, check out this video (no heads were Knoxed in the creation of this video):