Manicures with Mommy is our family’s “thing’. I’m in the stage of life where both kids are at school on the daily. Back before kids, I worked in Marketing and that meant more than an 8 hour work day. However, working from home with two kids, I’ve adjusted my work schedule around them for the most part. Each day, for about two hours, I do have to finish up my work and if it’s time sensitive it means two hours away from my kids. On those days, the guilt is tangible, but I brush it off because this is life and bills need paying.
To ease some of the mind boggling guilt, I make sure I dedicate a solid afternoon each week to show up and be present. So, Friday afternoons are scheduled in for “being with the kids.” I’ve named it Family Time Friday. Since both kids are fascinated with manicures and pedicures, each Friday afternoon we spend time together pampering our hands and feet!
Manicures with Mommy
Even The Boy loves manicure time. It doesn’t thrill me, because The Boy’s habit of placing his hands in his mouth causes some issues with manicures. It’s something he continues to do at his age. What’s worse? He’s in school, and this annoys me to no end. It also means, I don’t want clear nail polish consumed when it chips off whilst his hands are in his mouth. Our luck? He’ll be allergic to something in the polish, and get sick. Yeah, that’s our kind of luck around here these days. I think I must have walked under a ladder, in the path of a black cat, and broke a mirror without knowing it – the luck is that bad right now. UGH.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Little Miss never puts her hands in her mouth and truly takes care of her hands with lotions and potions! She loves to have her nails painted with beautiful colors. She loves to watch me do my manicures, and pedicures. She’s in love with the process, and the outcome.
We Go Non-toxic Nail Polishes
We choose polishes that are 5-free and when possible, vegan-friendly. Plus, we like a huge color selection. Since Little Miss also loves designs and details on her nails and toes, we’ve invested in some cute tools to make dots, lines, and basic drawing easier for me to create. If it was up to her, every nail would be a different color from our ever-growing collection of non-toxic nail polishes. Mommy doesn’t have all day to devote to manicures, so she gets to choose three colors. One for the base, one for stripes, along with one for dots. Simple.
I do try to coax her into colors that complement one another. Orange, and light purple look good together. Adding in a few dots in a coppery color, which match the orange tones.
The best part about my daughter? She’s so patient as I paint the base coat on, and equally as patient waiting for it to dry. The patience continues as I put the color coat on, and it dries. Even more patience is displayed as I create lines, and dots, and then again she’s patient when she has to have the top coat painted on! Oh, and then she waits for it to dry. It’s so much easier, and calmer experience when we have lots of patience. We end up with beautiful smudge-free manicures. Mommy hates smudges after working so hard creating the nail art!
Weekly manicures
Quality time for mommy and Little Miss happens rarely. I’m not playing lacrosse in the yard with her, that’s daddy and daughter time. It’s hard to get one-on-one time with Little Miss, because I do have two kids. It’s usually me and them, without much one-on-one time. I think the new quality time will be dedicated to weekly manicures for her, while The Boy hangs with daddy….. once daddy doesn’t have so much overtime to work to pay for the damage from our flood in the house.
Do you have a daughter? What’s your one-on-one quality time activity you partake in? Let me know in the comments below! We need more fun activities for our time together! I hope to have more than just our weekly manicures to spend with my baby girl.
