Spa night

Once again, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Bath time is often a struggle. It starts with the battle between AJ and Sydney of which one has to go first. Then the whining starts, "Do I have to wash my hair?"

And of course, once they're in the tub, "I'm not ready to get out yet."

Complicating things this weekend, we'd rented Cars 2 from Red Box. AJ was excited to watch it, but I knew it would scare Sydney. 

Enter Mommy the Spin Doctor. Time for some magic. It's not bath night. No. It was time for some princess pampering.

"Sydney, I think tonight should be Spa Night," I told her.

"What's spa night?" She bit on the bait.

"We are going to take a bubble bath, and make your hair smell nice, and then we're going to put nail polish on."

Suddenly, bath time couldn't come quickly enough!

I won't pretend that all went smoothly. She still didn't want to wash her hair, and she gave three false "I'm ready to get out" lines before she was really ready to get out. (Which was fine with me because it gave me more time to read my book.)

But at last she was dried off and wrapped in a robe. Because what else would you wear for Spa Night?

Strawberry-scented de-tangler came first. I haven't decided yet if I like it. It definitely minimizes the snarls, and thus the complaints from Sydney. But it creates all new power struggles. She wants to spray it herself. But of course she isn't coordinated enough to hold the spray bottle a few inches from her head, point it in the correct direction and spray. Also, it tends to make her hair look greasy, which increases the number of weekly battles to wash her hair. All for a few less snarls and a fake strawberry smell, which Sydney thinks is great.

But we didn't stop with the hair. Oh, no! Next it was nail polish time. Sydney picked sparkly pink for her toe nails and light purple for her fingernails. And while I enjoyed a glass of wine, she sipped some chocolate milk.

Adapting her best, regal sounding accent (if she'd had a tea cup in hand, her pinky finger would have been in proper position), she announced, "This is wonderful."

Ah, the life of a princess. And it never occurred to her that she'd just taken the first bath.