Happy Irony

I went out and had a little "girl time" with my oldest yesterday. We got manicures and had lunch at a local sushi place. While we waited for our bento boxes we took pictures of our freshly painted nails and played a game of "I'm going on a picnic...." It was a fun afternoon and my heart was full of love and laughter when I returned home.

Shortly after getting settled in the house, my youngest woke up. I went to get her out of her crib to change her pull-up. As I went to tickle her neck she grabbed my hand and pulled it towards her. "Fingers?!" she asked in a "What did you do?!" kind of tone. "I got them painted," I told her. "Paint," she said, and I could see the little wheels turning around in her mind as to what this paint stuff could be.

When my middle child saw my nails she loved that they were dark purple, and then promptly asked when we were going to have some "Mommy & C" time to go get hers painted. I told her this coming weekend was ours. She's pretty stoked and has already informed me she wants to get Hello Kitty nail polish, just like her big sister, only she wants violet.

My nails looked great yesterday...

Today two nails are already chipped, one finger has some weird gray streak on it, my middle finger got squished and the paint is oddly wavy now, and I have blue markers all over my hands from doing a rocket ship craft with C this afternoon - who profusely apologized for getting my "pretty purple fingers all smudgy."

Interestingly enough, a few days back I wrote a poem about my hands; about how I perceived them and how my kids perceived them. It's funny how sometimes when you just think about something, in passing or in quiet reflection, that thing or idea can all of a sudden become a focal point in your life in a happily ironic way...

The Cradle