Nailed

I'm currently trying to hide from one of my children. We are engaged in a subtle form of Keep away.  She doesn't know I'm it.  It's not anything psychological or emotional; it's just she has an idea, a vision she wants to enact and it involves me.  She wants to paint my nails.

Now I am not a nail polish kind of gal.  I didn't like it in high school and I still don't care for it now.  Even pedicures which I don't mind and actually need to keep my feet in shape, I would prefer without the paint bit at the end.  It's not just I hate the smell. I hate the sound of the emory board scraping the nails.  I don't like the pushing of the cuticles with little wooden punts or the pushing and cutting and trimming --I can't watch; even reading about how it is done kind of creeps me out.  But worst of all, you have to sit still for at least 20 minutes after the final coat to keep from having it look tacky and nasty within minutes.  Twenty minutes.

Do you know what could happen to my house in 20 minutes if I weren't able to use my hands to intervein?  I don't and frankly I'm scared to find out.  On top of that, I just don't sit still for 20 minutes anyway. Even as a student, sitting in a class, my leg would be bouncing under the desk or I'd be doodling while following the text or taking notes, I don't single task anything and so stillness, forced stillness is the most stressful thing I can imagine. At the hairdresser's, where other people relax when their locks are being brushed and dried and styled, I'm thinking "Okay, I've been here, my hair is cut let's go I'm done." I even twitch, talk and thrash around in my sleep.  You'll know I'm dead when I stop moving long enough for someone to do my hair properly.   

But my daughter bought beautiful sparkly pink nail polish with her own money and after I showed her how to use it, she reasoned, I would love it too.   I begged off the first day because as I explained, I needed my hands to do the dishes, feed the baby, bathe the children and get them dressed for bed.   The second day, I pointed out we didn't have time because we had swimming lessons.  

The third day, she helped with dinner and used paper plates.  I thought I was cornered until she couldn't find her nail polish.  I promise I didn't hide it.   I did use the opportunity to explain that people like to pick their own colors.  "Well," she said, "You could buy your own tomorrow when we go shopping." I couldn't see a way out so I mumbled that I'd try to remember.  She left a note reminding me on my pillow.  She called while I was out shopping to ask what color I'd picked.  Grudgingly, I went to the makeup aisle and picked a shade.

So tomorrow, it's happening.  I surrender.  My fingers will be a soft coral if all goes as anticipated.  I know it will bring her joy to paint my fingers.  If I'm going to be stuck for 20 minutes, I might has well make the best of it.  Wonder if she'd be interested in cutting my hair as well. 

Future Politicians in the Family

My daughter doesn’t accept correction easily. She’s five and a quick study of her two older sisters. As such, she is quite convinced that she has everything figured out. For example, the other day I came upon her as her drink spilled all over the table, chair, her outfit and the floor. Grabbing paper towels to clean it up, I said the obvious. “You should be more careful. You dropped your cup.”

She folded her arms and gave me a cold corrective stare.
“I did Not.” She pouted at me.

“Yes. You did.” I couldn’t believe she would argue the point.
“I saw it.”

“NO I DIDN’T.” She shouted back.

Irritated, I stopped cleaning the mess. “Alright then, what happened?”

“I didn’t drop the cup. It fell.”

I suddenly understood that in her world, nothing she did was actually wrong as long as she could omit herself from the picture.

The technique remains the same even as children age. When my oldest was preparing for a special evening out at the local high school, he came down the stairs in jeans and a t-shirt. I explained that this tour of the school was about first impressions both ways and that he needed to dress up a bit. He went back upstairs.

My mom was visiting. She saw him come down, button down shirt and a tie and sensed he still needed a bit of sprucing.

“Did you brush your teeth?” she asked.
“Yes.” He said without looking or smiling.

“I don’t mean during your lifetime.”
He looked down.

“Did you brush your teeth today?”
“Yes.”

He still wasn’t making direct eye contact.

Mom is a veteran of these things.
“This afternoon?”

“Oh.”
Up the stairs he went.

Perhaps it is a consequence of living so close to the beltway where language only holds as much meaning as the speaker and the listener invests. Having such skilled negotiators for children requires that the parents be thinking two or three steps ahead with each and every utterance.

“Did you hit your sister?”

“No.” My son responds.

The sister is screaming, howling, proclaiming to all the world of her outrage at his having injured her and then denied it.

“Why is she crying?”

Rather than directly lie, a severely punishable offense, he shrugs his shoulders.

Knowing I can guess the actual series of events, I chose my next words carefully.

“Did you in any way, inadvertently or intentionally, touch your sister in some fashion that might have caused her to be unhappy with you?”

“What does inadvertently mean?”
“By accident.”

“What was the question?”
“Did you hurt your sister whether or not you meant to?”

He looks down at his feet, buying time to figure a way out of Mom’s verbal trap.
Resorting to a time tested trick of politicians, he tries blaming the accuser,
“She started it.”

Mental yoga aside, they’ll be ready for a career in Washington by the time they leave home.

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20 days until Erma Bobmeck Conference...guess I better start working on being funny.