iBrow - Now available in two horrible colours...

There comes a glorious point in motherhood where somehow, mysteriously, there are no children around you and that's not due to neglect or the intervention of the Department of Community Services, but to the local education system taking them off your hands for the mere cost of a third of your husband's wage.

Fortuitously, pre-school and big school aligned like some sort of celestial eclipse and I found myself all alone in a big shopping centre with both time and money to spare. I decided it was time to do some spontaneous Christmas shopping. It was nice. Boring, but nice.

Surely, I thought, after all this selfless future giving it was time to also get some small present for myself. Heck even an eyebrow wax, for example. It was getting a bit overdue, anyway.

And there was a special on eyebrow waxing and tinting! What a coincidence!

I went in, and lay down on the plastic covered bed. Regarding the tinting part, I told her. I told her a thousand times "Not dark.. Just a little bit more colour."

Now. I'm not sure whether it was just getting used to a new look, but when I saw myself in the mirror, my eyes opened wide, my heart pumped harder, and my breath became short and quick. I was almost hyperventilating - they were dark! Like, really dark. Dark like the blackest night, or the cloak of the headless horseman, or Husband's soul (you'll see why later). I told her I didn't want dark! She noticed (as if you couldn't, seriously) my disappointment, shock, and anxiety regarding my new look, and offered to put some make-up on me to hide some of the redness. Umm... YES!

I was thankful that I had at least left the eyebrow place until last. But what about lunch?? I'm about to see people! Oh man! I hurry to the car, where I had space to examine myself a bit closer... It was awful. I didn't know how I could fix it. As I drove to lunch, I quickly and swiftly unpinned my fringe and pulled it over my face to hide at least a little bit of the what-looked-like-thick-black eyebrows. It had to do.

Life had to go on. What happened has happened. I can't change my eyebrows. I just need to wait it out until the tint fades, and never do it again.

My children all had different reactions to this 'new look' of mine (that I was already depressed about and planning to spend the next 2 weeks indoors because of it):

3 year old: "Mum? Is that you?"

9 year old: "You look weird, Mum. Did you do something to your face?"

10 year old: "You look angry. Actually. You look like a man."

Great! I look like a weird, angry man my youngest cannot recognise.

Husband returned home and offered some kind and reassuring words to soothe and console me. He told me I was still beautiful and that finally he could actually see my expression. That was great and I started to feel better, until an hour later when he stood on the other side of the room and said "oh, I see what you meant now. It looks like two caterpillars doing a mating dance."

Then confirms that I now definitely have bitchy resting face.

... Awesome.