If I can barely handle this kind of thing when she's only six, how the hell am I expected to make it through the REAL teenage years?

Last night Aurora slept over and we had a girlie night of watching Hairspray and doing make-up, nails and hair. There was popcorn, and lemonade and Swedish fish. Even Steve had his nails done and I let the girls do my make-up, which may not ever happen again, we'll see.

This morning, after at least nine different interruptions during my morning bathroom routine that included cramps and attempting to wash my hair, I demanded that the girls scrub their faces.

You'd have thought I'd asked them to hack off a few toes. The wails that greeted my demand were piercing - just what I needed.

"The washcloth in the bathroom is clean. Use warm water. Scrub." I was hard and cold as a frozen stone. No sympathy here, ladies, keep on walkin'.

Five milliseconds later:

"Ugh! This washcloth smells nasty!"

"I think I'm gonna throw up!"

"Yuck! Your mom wants us to use this on our faces?"

They reentered the kitchen, where I was doing a fairly good job of ignoring them completely and making myself a cup of coffee, mmm coffee, my love...

Ignoring the small, loud people completely I turned to Steve, "Could you please go in the bathroom, small the washcloth and tell them that it's clean?"

"I'll tell them the truth," he said and I glared at him for displaying such shocking disloyalty.

Then from the bathroom:

"It smells like a washcloth. A clean washcloth." Ah, sweet vindication!

The whining continued until I gave them a new clean washcloth, which I have no doubt smelled exactly like the first clean washcloth.

They scrubbed, the make-up was removed (mostly), and then they left both washcloths in a wet little balls in the sink, arranged the towel on the floor just so, and set off to start the rest of their day.

* * *

A side note: I am leaving this evening for a long weekend on the Cape with my dear friend, Annie. And guess what? There will be no children there! At all! I mean, I'm pretty sure Annie put out a cease and desist order to anyone who might possibly be thinking of bringing any children at all into my immediate vicinity over the next three days. You did, didn't you, Annie?