Girls and Their Polishes

This cute tongue will soon taste the lure of the polish.

  I don’t have a boy child, but I can only imagine things are vastly different when raising a girl and a boy. This is especially true if your boy is very rough and tumble like most boys I know, and your girl is very prissy like a certain girl I know very well.

            I suppose Chris’ father and I are partly to blame for her extreme girliness. After all, we did force dresses and ruffles on her very early on. But once she had a chance to make up her own mind, and believe me that started very early, she went running down the female path as quickly as high heels would take her. She turns up her nose at any clothes that are remotely boyish. That could mean plain blue or lacking of glitter. If given the chance, she would wear a skirt each day, although she has finally agreed to wear more skorts now that she is enjoying life at the top of the monkey bars. Like her grandmother, she slows to a crawl when we pass a jewelry counter and she is often distracted by shiny baubles.

Don't you love my new necklace? Oooh, sparkly!

            But one of the most tell-tale signs of princessness is that Chris is addicted to nail polish. Often I’ve caught her staring at my meager supply of polishes with dreams in her eyes. She begs, I mean BEGS, at the store for press-on nails that already have designs. Sadly for her I always shoot down that idea when I remember horror stories of friends whose own nails were ripped off by evil press-ons.

            To appease her boring fingernails and toenails, I will sometimes let Chris choose her own bottle of polish at the store. I mean, they sell stuff that’s only 98 cents a bottle. One night after she was particularly good at the pharmacy (or possibly she begged particularly long and wore me down – I can’t always remember the circumstance) I let her choose two colors. That’s like Christmas to a little girl. Mother of the year, I was! Two colors meant one for each hand! Or alternating toes of colors! Or all one color on the hands and all one color on the feet! The possibilities were almost endless! And for less than $2 I might add, so pretty much a win-win.

            The glee was brief though. We hadn’t even made it to the car for a less than three-minute drive to our house – I’m not exaggerating, three minutes is all she had to endure - when the begging to open the bottles began. Her reasoning – she just wanted to smell it. I assume she was thinking of that nail polish as a treat for the senses to really prove to herself that she been granted this special, brand new present.

            However, being the sensible person I am, I tried to convince a three-year-old that it’s not the best idea to open a bottle of nail polish in a car. I told her that we would paint nails after supper when we got home and she nodded happily in agreement. Naively I drove along, thinking how nice it was that she seemed so thrilled to just hold the bright polishes in her little hands, turning the bottles over to watch the glitter catch the light. Oh so naïve.

            My bliss lasted only a brief minute or so and as we pulled into the driveway (seriously not three minutes down the road!) I smelled the unmistakable signs of an open bottle of nail polish. There really is no mistaking that smell, is there? And to a mother who has just detailed the light-gray interior of her car, it doesn’t smell like a special brand new hot pink goodness. It smells like doom.

            Instantly I began my lecturing, my voice getting higher and higher and louder and louder in my panic. I turned around to see not a mess of nail polish slathered on the seat cushions by a child with super human strength to rip through protective plastic and a new bottle seal. Instead, I saw a tiny girl with a scared look on her face and a tiny dot of pink paint in the middle of her upper lip.

            I continued my yell-fest, reminding her that I had told her over, and over, and over not to open the bottles until we got home and what the heck did she think she was doing? As a last dig I asked in my shrill voice, “Well? Does it smell good?”

            Instead of the defiant “Yes, it smells like rainbows and unicorns,” that I was expecting, I instead heard a small whimper.

            “No. And it doesn’t taste good either.”

            !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cute doggie, seconds before a makeover was about to begin.
Fortunately no nail polish was involved.
And no doggies were harmed in the writing of this blog.

            Yes, that is me switching instantly from irritated mother mode to full-blown panic mode.

Of course it was already dusk out and the typeface on the bottle is too miniscule to read and if you could find a magnifying glass to read it I doubt there is much information about what to do if a toddler ingests heaven only knows how much nail polish while you’re driving along thinking all is right with the world because your kid actually listens to a word you say and doesn’t open bottles until you give the all clear.

In my panic, I drug her out of the car and directly into the kitchen where I began to shovel water by the handful into her little mouth, stopping just short of a water-boarding incident. Really by that point there was just a small dot on her tongue – probably just a dab was all she needed to realize it’s not such a good idea to taste nail polish and mommies do occasionally know what they’re yammering on about. I debated calling poison control, but finally decided the dot of paint she “drank” probably wasn’t any worse than the amount she would eventually eat off a polished thumb when she sucked it at night.

Then I had a stiff drink. Not of nail polish but probably something equally as strong.

Then I DIDN’T polish Chris’ nails that night.

Then I forbade her from ever, ever, ever holding nail polish until she could wait until I told her it was time to open it. We’ll see how long the memory lasts.