I got a manicure a few days ago. By a two-year-old.
When she was done, two of the fingers on my right hand had a swipe of polish on one half of the nail, one had a stripe down the middle, my thumb had a bit of polish near the cuticle and my pointer finger had sparkles clear up to my knuckle. My left hand was bare because my manicurist got bored and wandered off.
When I was a child, no one was allowed to use polish in the house. Apparently, the smell was too strong for sensitive noses. Plus, polish was too messy for kids to use; there was too great a chance for spilling. And, there was no way we would have been allowed to put polish on an adult. It wouldn’t have been “good enough”.
Some of those rules stuck with me when I became a mom. I was happy to have the freedom to give myself a manicure inside the house, but I didn’t allow my kids access to polish until they were older. It just seemed like a good common-sense rule.
In contrast, my two-year-old granddaughter approached me with so much assurance. She was already a pro in her own mind. She had been allowed to put polish on her mom and even her dad occasionally. It never occurred to her that I would refuse her offer.
I cringed a bit as the polish went on in crazy ways because it was so opposite to the old rules in my head. Did the smell and possibility of spillage really not matter as much as I had been led to believe?
When she wandered off (mid-manicure) she seemed content with her talent. My manicure was “good enough” and that was fine with her.
I was raised in a very black-and-white world. Rules were meant to be followed. There was a right way to do things and a wrong way. There wasn’t much room for a gray area or any experimentation, especially if it involved messiness.
I looked at my hand and smiled. Yes, it was a mess, but it made a little girl happy and I have no doubt that by the time she is a bit older she really will be a pro at applying polish. All this experimentation will bring her so much joy in the meantime.
I’ve kept the polish on exactly the way she applied it: right hand a mess and left hand bare. It makes me smile whenever I look at it. It’s a good reminder that life doesn’t have to be perfect. Sometimes, it can just be fun.
Read more of Ann’s contributions to AllMomDoes here.
