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  • Elsa the Girly Girl

    As you may have seen, both Clio and Elsa enjoy wearing my hats and shoes. Not to mention their father's. They like wearing play necklaces and bracelets, too, and usually like having barettes and rubber bands in their hair. But Elsa seems to be developing an affinity for another sort of personal grooming items: things she can put on her face and hands. As in creams, lotion, soap, etc. She has watched me put make-up on in the morning before work, and wants a foam pad so she can "put it on Elsa face!" too. She sees me put on lipstick / chapstick, and wants to "put on Elsa mouth!" I let her, a little. (Clean foam pad; chapstick, not lipstick.)

     

    I should mention, at this point, that I think I am relatively low-maintenance when it comes to my personal grooming routine. Yes, I do wear make-up most days, because my eyes all but disappear from my face when I don't. And in the past couple of years, I've started wearing light foundation sometimes to even out my skin tone. I put moisturizer on my face before bed -- whatever happened to be on sale at CVS when I needed more. But that's pretty much it. I wash my hair, like, twice a week. I almost never wear nail polish, because it makes me feel like my fingernails are suffocating, and I just chip it off within a couple of hours anyway. I do like toenail polish and the occasional pedicure in the summer, but this is a new-ish development, as is getting my hair professionally colored. (OK, I guess I've become a little more high maintenance with age.)

     

    Still, I grew up with a fairly non-girly mom as a role model -- a very naturally beautiful mom, but one who was never overly focused on clothes, make-up, etc. I like that. And I like the fact that I wasn't allowed to get my ears pierced or wear so much as lip gloss until I was twelve. I like that clothes and hair and shoes weren't big priorities for me as a kid or a teenager. (God, I was a terrible dresser as a teenager! My teen years spanned 1987-1993, so I sort of had an excuse, but still.) Sure, there were times when I was jealous of my more "advanced" and fashion-forward peers. But in retrospect, I'm glad I was brought up in a fairly non-materialistic, non-appearance-obsessed household. Naturally, I want Elsa and Clio to have more or less the same values.

     

    So is it wrong that I put nail polish on Elsa yesterday?

     

    (Pics after the jump)

     

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  • My daughters' glory

    We took the girls to a "structured" playgroup this past weekend, put on by our city's Family Network. They have a great space at the local high school, full of toys and books and craft supplies and kid-sized tables and chairs.

     

    The "structure" part didn't go so well, given that the average age of the kids there was about 22 months (Elsa & Clio fit right in), and trying to get toddlers that age to stay in one place and focus for more than two or three minutes at a time is pretty much an exercise in lunacy. There were two attempts at "Circle Time" -- parents and kids sitting in a circle on the floor, listening to a story, then singing songs. Heh. At one point, another mom and I made eye contact and laughed, realizing that the only people left sitting in the circle singing "This Old Man" were the parents. All the kids had wandered off to play with toys. (With lyrics like "he played knick-knack on my hive," can you blame them?)

     

    Still, it was a good experience, and we'll probably bring the girls again. For a couple of kids who don't do daycare and aren't used to big group situations, they both did admirably well. No freak outs, no fights, no meltdowns. I was particularly struck by how Elsa handled herself -- with such enthusiasm and bravado. Lots of enthusiastic grinning and clapping and squealing. Going right up to other parents and kids and beaming at them, trying to interact with them. At one point, while the facilitator was reading a story during Circle Time, Elsa went up and stood next to her, leaning right up against her thigh, and pointed at the pictures in the book, as if the story was being read for her and her alone. It was funny. And very cute. And it scared me a little bit.

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About the Blogger

Jane Roper

Jane Roper in Boston

One baby? Piece of cake. Try two. This working mother gives you the inside scoop on the ultimate in extreme parenting: twins.

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