Make Me Up

EJ is funny.  He's hilarious when you give him any sort of lotion—he’ll put it on his cheek and say “Niiice, niiice” like he’s a 60-year-old Italian man. So quirky. Whenever he gets his hands on crayons, he’ll try to color on his lips.  Too cute.  And, last week, he got a hold of my brown eyeliner pencil and started to draw on his face.  “EJ, you are so silly,” I laughed…and then gulped.  He learned this from watching me. He knows how to put on makeup. 

I love makeup.  Truth be told, the feminist within does take issue with the fact that women are essentially told by society that they need a certain level of "doctoring up” to look presentable, and men just get to show up looking exactly as they look (must be nice).  But, the silly teenager within finds makeup fun, pretty, and interesting and gets a kick out of changing her look from day to day. 

Makeup is both a hobby and necessity for me, as somewhere between 2000 and 2001, the end of my eyebrows stopped growing in and what was left there fell out. They are now two brown tadpoles above my eyes and I have to fill them in and extend them every morning.  This requires eyebrow pencils, powders, and wax….I’ll spare you the details.

In the scheme of life, my eyebrow situation isn't a big deal.  People have real problems, and this is more of an annoyance.  I mean, the notion of the “five-minute face” doesn't apply to me (brows alone take five minutes!), but it’s fine.   It's also an awkward conversation to have out in the dating world when a sweaty activity is on the horizon (like hiking or jogging...get your mind out of the gutter!).  I never realized how the phrase "We need to talk..." can evoke so much panic in a beau, and learned to start the story of my brows by saying "Funny story to tell..." I also have bad eyebrow days every now and again, and can inadvertently look angry, bored, or puzzled. And, there have been prolonged periods of time where my brows have been too thin, too thick, too low, too arched, too short, and too long and no one’s told me until I’ve seen a horrendous picture and asked for feedback.  Hot days, boot-camp classes, chair massages, and rainstorms also cause me a small degree of panic, but now I roll with back-up brow tools in my purse.  And, on impromptu food shopping trips and early morning coffee runs when I just don’t feel like drawing eyebrows, I have to keep my big sunglasses on like I'm a hungover socialite. Other than that, my life isn’t impacted at all.  Eesh.

Back to EJ.  My lovely, observant son has milk and plays in my room while I get ready for work every morning.  PBS is on too, but he really gets a kick out of watching me do makeup, and being a mother hasn’t really changed my beauty routine.  Despite what other harried moms say about having no time to put on makeup, I can’t and don’t want this to be the case for me.  I like makeup and EJ can’t roll around with an eyebrow-less mom.  As he gets older and sleeps later, my morning makeup routine will not be a part of his life, and other hobbies will thankfully take precedence. But for now, it's fine that we both share a love for a good smoky eye.