Mani-Pedis

     

       The sound of my husband's call, "Lela, come in here. Lela, come now, hurry!" was terrifying. He sounded panicked. Thoughts burst in my head of who was hurt and how. The sharp knives that had been on the counter were in the dishwasher, and it was still running, I could hear it, but did they get into the knife block?! I was half laying on the bed watching Jewel Plant as he woke up and was looking around. We had just gotten out of the shower. I chose showering over taking the dog on her walk and over food. I couldn't remember the last time I had a shower, but I smelled awful, so I changed my priorities today. Luckily I had already finished getting dressed, so I rushed out.
       The smell hit me like a ton of bricks. I had smelled it faintly as I got dressed, but I hadn't registered what the smell was. As my eyes found Camellia I learned that the sound in Sam's voice was not panic, but amusement being held back. Covered from head to toe in yellow nail polish. You see, yesterday we did mani-pedis, my attempt to give the girls some better one-on-one attention. They wanted me to do my nails too, so as the day went on I eventually got mine all done, except I wanted to finish my toes, so I left out my yellow polish and my topcoat.

       Sam looked down at Camellia and she looked up at him and in her most darling two year old voice said, "I paint my nails!" He lost it. He held his breath and turned around and let it rush out in a very poorly concealed laugh. Seeing his amusement sparked my own, and I too turned to try and hide my amusement. Then panic really set in. Where did this occur?!?! Do I need to scrub yellow out of the carpet? Where was the top coat? We set out to uncover the mystery. From everywhere we looked the carpet was spared from this yellow carnage, but how? I looked to the table and reclining chair I had been doing nails on and saw nothing.
       "The top coat is gone too, where's Cassia?" I had missed the sound until that point when it registered that Cassia was running water in the kitchen sink. Sam went to investigate.
       "The polish is under the table, and in front of the stove. I found your top coat, only it's just water now." She had filled it up. At least she hadn't dumped it out on the dishes first. Apparently she pays attention to when I make our foaming hand soap and thought that the same principle could be used with the nail polish.
       Sam then found the bottle of yellow nail polish, it too was covered in yellow. I haven't dared look at the dishes, but I'm sure they were spared from the havoc. If not, life goes on and dishes are easy to wash.
       I transferred the girls to the bathtub to try and loosen the polish and got the baby sitting in the Bumbo in the bathroom so he wouldn't be all alone. Sam left for work as I retrieved the cotton balls and acetone.
       Camellia removed herself from the bath and dried off and I got to work scrubbing her down with acetone soaked cotton balls. Face. Hair. Fingers. Arms. Thighs. Toes. Feet. Tummy. I found polish in places I didn't think it could go, but after 30 minutes she was finally cleaned off and back in the tub to get the acetone off of her body.

 

       By this point Jewel Plant was crying so I nursed him while Cassia dried herself off, all the while screaming, "It hurts, it hurts!" When I inquired as to what hurts she said that me using the cotton balls on her was going to hurt. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my four year old is a drama queen. She has been since birth.
       Mostly satisfied, I set Jewel Plant aside and got to work on removing the polish from Cassia, who immediately started laughing because the cotton balls tickled. She then bathed and then the two of them cleaned up the nail polish and we could finally have a sit down.
       "Why did you get nail polish?"
       "We wanted to paint our nails in our house." (Under the table is their "house" "in the game.")
       "If you'd asked, we could have painted nails again today."
       "We know."
       As I put Jewel Plant down for his nap my fear from the moment Sam called for me came true, almost. I walked into the kitchen to find the two year old with scissors and the four year old holding a bag of chocolates from Christmas chocolates, trying to cut it open. I declared, "Naps all around!" And put them in bed.
       And that is how we came to not go on a bike ride immediately after breakfast, like I'd promised the girls we would do.
       The Child's Handbook must state, somewhere around the chapter on being two, that they must get into make-up. I do believe it was around this same age that Cassia started getting into make-up. Not mine, I own nail polish, that's it, but other peoples. She was found in my sister's mother-in-law's room, under the bed, with a $20 tube of lipstick smeared all over the bottom of the bed. Though, I do know Cassia was the person to open the nail polish, Camellia hasn't figured out how to twist things off yet.