1 Mother 2 Another

I mentioned recently that Cora’s
quite taken with her new game, Make-Up Stand, where she pretends to
be a makeup artist and will “do” your make-up for you
with real brushes and pretend powders.


I’ve grown tired of playing the game eight (8!) times a day:
the game becomes more elaborate each time, and now has to start
with me at “home” getting my purse and telling my mom
I’m going to get make-up, then “shopping” along
the walls, spying the store, unlocking it with the Sparkle Key, and
asking Cora, who has her back to me, “Excuse me – can
you please do my make-up for me?” at which point she spins
around on her stool with a smile and says, “Sure,
honey.”


And then we start all the make-up stuff.

So the other day, as Cora was lovingly
stroking pretend purple on my cheeks, I had a Eureka! moment: why
not give Cora another face to paint?


The next morning, I got out her easel, paints, and a wad of
different-sized paintbrushes. I drew ten large faces on her white
paper roll, each one the size of the easel. And then I told her to
go to town doing their make-up.


Well, that was a big hit.


Some of these women have hats. Some have blue hair. Some have
intricate lashes painted on. They grow steadily fancier as her work
progressed, and the final one had quite a few with plastic gems
cleverly applied with white paint for glue. Cora wore her
painter’s smock and a look of intense concentration for
several hours, stopping only for lunch.


When Maddie arrived home from school, she couldn’t wait to
join in, and soon the two were standing on either side of the easel
making up another pretty face. They’d finish a piece, then
judiciously discuss the other person’s work, just like they
learned in art camp last summer. The girls shared paint and brushes
well, and had a grand, quiet time painting happily and
argument-freely for the rest of the afternoon.


And Mommy spent a blissful day out of the Make-Up Store.