Title: Emily’s World: Spa Day
GETTING THERE
I hear her scream, “My Aunt CJ’s here!” when I knock on the door, which makes me smile. I then hear Josh yell, “Nu huh, my Aunt CJ’s here,” which makes me laugh. You have to wonder who the kid is. A second later, when Donna opens the door shaking her head, I can tell she wonders the same thing.
“You don’t have an Aunt CJ, silly,” Emily says giggling from Josh’s shoulders as they traipse down the steps. “Hi Aunt CJ!” she says waving as though I’m across an airport instead of across a room.
“Hello Emily Joan, are you ready for our spa day?”
“I’m ready,” she sing-songs with her arms up in the air and a huge dimpled smile, and I see she’s got some teeth starting to grow in. I was given, as a gift, Emily’s fourth self-pulled tooth. The first one went in her memento box, the second to Josh, of course, and the third to Donna. She told me last week not to tell anyone, but she’s planning on sending the fifth one to her Grandpa Moss. I was inexplicably happy to have ranked above the grandparents. And it’s possible that when Sam was over for dinner on Tuesday night that I mentioned I had one and he didn’t.
Josh pulls her off his shoulders, tickling her as he does, and sets her down on the floor, where Donna immediately bends down to her level. “You look very pretty. Now, do you remember what we went over?”
Emily looks very seriously at her. “Don’t forget pleases and thank you’s, and no asking Aunt CJ to buy me things and be polite and no huffing when I don’t get my way and eat all my lunch even if it’s yucky and hold Aunt CJ’s hand when we cross the street or any other time she tells me to and no pouting and try to stay clean.” She nods once when she’s done, quite proud of herself.
“And…”
“And under no circuspancestes am I allowed to come home with a new purse, a new outfit, or new shoes.”
“Donna!” She’s no fun at all.
Emily looks up at me and smiles. “That’s ok Aunt CJ, if you buy me an outfit or anything, we can keep it at your house for when I come over there.”
“Emily Joan Lyman,” Donna says sternly.
“What?” she asks innocently. “That’s what Daddy said.”
Donna looks up at Josh with raised eyebrows.
He shrugs and flashes his dimples. “What?” he asks in a voice that sounds disturbingly like Emily’s just did. “I was teaching her about regulation loopholes. It was an example.”
Donna looks up at me helplessly. “Do you see what I have to deal with here?”
“I was actually going to suggest the same thing,” I say quietly.
“It’s a conspiracy,” she mumbles under her breath.
“It’s ok Mommy,” Emily says, kissing her cheek. “I won’t let Aunt CJ buy me any of that stuff today.”
Donna looks at her and smiles. “Thank you, Sweetheart.”
“I’ve been thinking I maybe need some new lip gloss.”
“Ooh, that sounds fun,” I say excitedly. She’s not allowed make-up, but she is allowed lip-gloss and finger nail polish.
“Emily!”
“What? I didn’t ask!” she screeches, holding her arms out to her sides.
Donna shakes her head, but can’t bite back the smile. “Leave now.”
“Ok,” Emily says smiling, then walks over to Josh and raises her arms in the universal ‘pick me up’ sign.
He picks her up and kisses her cheek. “Hurry home,” he whispers, a sad look in his eye.
“You can go to Starbucks with Mommy today, that’ll still be fun,” she says quietly.
“Yeah, I guess…” he whines. She hugs him and gives him a peck on the cheek and we leave.
“Do you have the child locks on?” she asks me as I open the back door of the car for her to get in.
I give her a strange look because, honestly, I don’t really consider her a child. Just a shorter version of Donna. “No, of course not.”
She nods. “Thank you. Uncle Sam used them last weekend when he took me to the zoo. I felt like I was in jail.”
I shake my head in mock disgust. “Men.”
She smiles and starts putting on her seatbelt, before suddenly yelling, “I forgot my purse!”
I look down at her. “Do you need it?”
“Aunt CJ!” she says, putting a hand up to her chest. “A lady can’t leave home without her purse!”
I smile as I recall the conversation we had in the mall when I bought Emily her very first purse when she was three. “I was just testing you. Good job, little one.”
We go back inside, Emily flailing her arms about and laughing on the way, even spinning once before stopping at the bottom of the stairs that lead into the building and then jumping up them one at a time with both feet while laughing at absolutely nothing. Kids are just awesome that way. When we walk back inside, Emily shouts her usual, “I’m home,” but Josh and Donna aren’t in the living room.
She walks over to Josh’s pants and t-shirt in a heap on the living room floor. “Mommy’s gonna yell at him for leaving his clothes laying around,” she says.
Just then, Josh pokes his head only out of the bedroom door. Good Lord, they couldn’t wait five minutes? “You’re back,” he says wide-eyed.
Emily looks up at him. “I forgot my purse. What ‘ya doin’?”
“Umm…we were tired, so we decided to take a nap.”
Emily tilts her head to the side. “You guys sure do take a lot of naps. You left your clothes on the floor, Mommy’s gonna yell at you,” she says before grabbing her purse.
We head out again, but just before we close the door, Josh says, “Call us on your way back, CJ. We might still be napping.” Yuck.
**********
SKIN CARE
When we get to the Piaf Spa for Emily’s very first spa day, we’re taken back to a dressing room and given robes to wear. Emily takes off the very adorable Capri pants and butterfly top she’s wearing to reveal a cute little two piece bathing suit Donna bought her that nearly killed Josh. I was there that day…ahh, the memories…
Once we’re both robed up, they take us to get a facial. I help Emily get up into a chair, but as soon as Maureen comes near her, she sits up straight. “You’re not going to put anything in my mouth, are you?” she asks, backing away a little. Donna bet me $50 bucks that question would come up today. I never should’ve taken that bet.
Maureen smiles at her. “No. Just on your face.”
Emily looks over at her supplies in obvious distrust. “What are the cucumbers for? I don’t like cucumbers.”
I smile at her. “Those are for your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“Yep. We’re gonna put them over our eyes. It’s good for them.”
She looks over at me. “Ok….” she drawls out. “What about that other stuff?”
Maureen looks at me and we both stifle a laugh. “She’s gonna put it on your face and it’s gonna get tight and clean your pores.”
“It’s green,” she screeches with huge eyes before looking at me. “Maybe you should go first,” she says, uncertainty in her voice.
“I can go first,” I say smiling, sitting in the chair next to hers and leaning back.
Maureen pulls a stool up for Emily, who climbs up and gets very close to my face to watch. When Maureen comes back a minute later, she starts massaging something into my face.
“It looks all glossy,” Emily whispers, leaning in close to my face.
“It’s supposed to,” I whisper back.
“Does is hurt?” she asks a minute later.
“No, it feels like lotion.”
When I say that, she reaches her finger out and touches my nose. “It’s slimy.”
Maureen laughs at her. “You want to put some on her face?”
I open my eyes so I can see the look on her face. She looks up at Maureen with a look that scares me a little. “Can I?”
She shrugs. “Sure.”
I look over at her when she sticks her hands into the bowl Maureen has, and her eyes light up like she’s doing something really fun that she’s not allowed to do. Josh has that look a lot. When she pulls her hands back out of the bowl she looks at them. “Cool.”
“Now just rub it into her skin.”
“But not her mouth,” Emily says, sticking her tongue out and concentrating as she rubs it around my cheeks.
“Right.”
“Is this ok Aunt CJ?” she asks a minute later, when my eyes are closed.
“Absolutely.”
“Ok,” she says as though she’s thinking about something. “I’ll go next.”
Once our facemasks are in place, Maureen takes us to the mudroom where Emily’s not sure if she should be excited or scared. The look on her face is a mixture of the one Donna gets when she bites her thumb and the one Josh gets when he’s about ready to tackle congress. I watch in amusement as she tries to figure this whole thing out.
“I’m not allowed to play in the mud,” she finally says, staring down into the bath.
I chuckle at her. “You don’t play in this mud. You just sit in it.”
“Mommy told me to stay clean.” She hasn’t taken her eyes off the mud bath. It’s quite entertaining.
“This is ok. Mommy knows about this.”
“Are you sure? Maybe I should call her to find out.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I bet she and Daddy are still… napping. We should probably let them finish.” Napping, my ass.
“They do like to nap. They napped last week when me and Uncle Sam were at the zoo.”
“Uncle Sam and I. You’re gonna like the mud. I promise.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off the mud bath as she takes her robe off. I hold her hand as she climbs the three steps down into it. “It feels squishy-squashy between my toes.”
I love kid terminology. “I know. It’s kind of cool, isn’t it?”
She takes a few steps around in the tub and looks up at me with a smile. “This is fun. Do I just stand here?”
I walk over to my tub and get in, also in a bathing suit since I’m with Emily and I don’t want to scare the crap out of the poor child, seeing as how her parents are already scarring her for life. Some day she’s gonna put all these things together and then she’s gonna spend the next five years in therapy. “No, we sit down and put our whole bodies in it except our heads.” I do exactly that and she watches me fascinated.
“It’s like on a beach when you’re covered in sand. Except your face is green.”
I chuckle at her. “So is yours, you know.”
“I know. Are you sure Mommy said this was ok?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Ok,” she says, sitting down “It’s warm. What do we do now?”
“We just sit here for a few minutes and talk about girl stuff.”
“What kind of girl stuff?”
Well, if Donna were here with me, we’d clearly be discussing all the napping, but since it’s Emily… “Did you have fun with Uncle Sam at the zoo?”
“Yeah! He bought me a stuffed giraffe this big,” she screeches, wrenching her hands out of the mud and showing me with her arms, flinging mud in her hair and my face in the process.
“Wow, that’s pretty big.”
“I know,” she says very seriously.
“Did he let you ride in the cool back seat on the train?” When I took her to the zoo while she was staying with me, the back seat on the train was very important.
Her eyes lose excitement. “Yeah, but he rode back there with me. Mommy said he’s over protective, whatever that means.”
I nod. “Well, Uncle Sam is a bit on the cautious side. He just wants you to be safe. What else did you do?”
“We rode the elephant and looked at all the monkeys and he didn’t make me go in the snake building.”
“That was nice of him.” Emily hates snakes. But come on, who doesn’t.
“Yeah. Daddy said he only wanted to take me to the zoo to help him pick up chicks, but when we went into the aminal farm, he didn’t need my help at all. He could pick them up all by himself. He even picked some up for little kids who were too ascared to pick them up by themselves. The mommies there liked that. They thought he was nice.”
See? Therapy. “He didn’t have to pick up chicks for you though, right?”
“No,” she says like I’m crazy. “I’m big. I can pick up my own baby chicks.”
“Of course you can.”
**********
FEET
“That tickles,” she giggles as Amberto gives her a pedicure. She keeps moving her feet, kicking him in the process, but he’s as gay as gay gets, and he’s getting a big kick out of her. Amberto is my favorite part of Piaf Spa.
“You look like your mommy,” he says to her, tickling her on purpose this time. Donna and I come here almost once a month. In fact, we have an appointment in two weeks.
She keeps laughing. “Daddy says I’m as pretty as her.”
“I don’t know. You’ve got those cute little dimples. That might make you even prettier,” he says smiling as he lotions her foot up.
“I got my dimples from my daddy. Mommy says they make him yummy enough to eat, but I think she’s just kidding. I don’t think she’d ever really eat him.”
He looks at me and smirks, but I give him a warning glare and he turns back to Emily with a foot scraper. Her eyes get huge. “What are you gonna do with that?”
He smiles up at her. “I’m just gonna scrape away a little dead skin off your foot. You don’t have much, it’ll only take a minute.”
“There’s something dead on my foot?” she screeches, yanking her foot up and holding it right in front of her face while she looks at it. She’s very limber.
I laugh at her. “It’s not a bug or anything, Emily. You can’t see it.”
“Is it gonna hurt?” she asks with raised eyebrows and a smile.
“Nope. It tickles.”
She opens her mouth wide. “More tickling?”
He grabs her foot and holds it up. “More tickling,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows at her.
She looks over at me between laughing. “This is fun.”
When our feet are soaking, they pull a rolling hospital like table up to each of us and bring us lunch. Emily’s not too excited about the tomato mozzarella salad, chicken salad on croissant, and seltzer on the table in front of her, and watching her stare at it all but makes me wet my pants.
“What’s wrong Emily?” I ask, trying not to laugh.
She looks up at me. “Nothing. What’s this?”
I look at the mozzarella slice. “Cheese.”
“And what’s this?”
“Chicken and mayonnaise.”
“Mayonnaise?” she asks with her ‘ick’ look in place.
I laugh. “Don’t you like your lunch?”
Her bottom lip juts out and she looks like she’s gonna cry. “Mommy said I have to eat my lunch no matter what.”
“What if instead, your lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, some Ritz Bitz, and a bottle of orange juice?”
She looks back down at the lunch in front of her and says in a wistful voice. “That’d be the bestest lunch in the whole wide world.”
This time I do laugh as I call Amberto over and ask him to bring our purses to us. When he gets back with them, I pull a brown paper bag out of mine and hand it to Emily. When she looks inside at the lunch I packed her, I expect her to do a little cheer. Instead, she looks at me and whispers as though I’ve saved her life, “I love you, Aunt CJ.”
“I love you too, Angel,” I say with a wink.
**********
COSMETICS
“I’ve never seen so many nail colors in one place in my whole entire life of five years,” she says in awe as we stand in front of the polish display after our pedicures and manicures.
“And that’s a pretty long time,” I say smiling.
“I know,” she says, still staring at the polish display.
“Which color do you think?”
“Hmm… let me see,” she says, her finger up by her lip. Oh no. Josh warned me about the ‘let me see.’
I point to a section clearly set aside for younger people. “These have sparkles.”
“Sparkles!” she screeches, turning towards them. Well, at least I’ve narrowed it down a little.
Seven and a half minutes later, she’s picked out two colors. One for her feet and one for her hands. We take them and the one color I have in my hand over to the nail painting station and she hands hers to Amberto.
“Green?” he asks skeptically.
“Yes,” she says with a smile.
“We have pink,” he says helpfully.
“I know. I want pink with sparkles on my fingertails.”
“But green on your toetails?” he asks, adopting her terminology. Ten bucks says he continues using it after today.
“Yes, please.”
“Ok,” he says, shaking his head while shaking the bottle.
While he paints Emily's toenails, she opens her purse and pulls out a snow globe. Yes, a snow globe. We went back and witnessed the napping for that? “Emily?”
“Yes,” she asks distractedly while she continues rooting around in her purse, pulling out a Hard Rock Café coaster next.
“What’s up with the snow globe?” Amberto looks up at it and starts laughing.
She finally finds the Chap Stick she’s been looking for. “I have lots of purses. I run out of things to put in them.” This makes me laugh too, and Amberto actually wipes tears from his eyes.
“How many purses do you have?”
“11.”
“11?” I ask loudly.
She looks at me casually. “Yes. You got me most of them.”
Well, she has a point. “So, what other things do you keep in your purses?”
She shrugs. “Whatever I can find that fits. Flip flops, note cards, spoons, the remote control from our old TV…”
“I see.”
“It’s hard to fill up 11 purses.”
Amberto looks up at her, completely amazed. “How do you pick which purse to take with you each time?”
She smiles and explains to him calmly, “Girls like to match purses with their clothes. This purse has a butterfly on it; it matches the shirt I wore today.”
He’s obviously impressed and nods.
“You know what we should do?” I ask in an excited voice. Donna’s gonna kill me for this.
“What?”
“We should get you a lip gloss, some fingernail polish, and maybe some gum for each of your purses. That way, you never have to worry about not having some with you.”
“You think?”
“I think every little girl needs lip gloss.”
“Plus, what if I wanted to draw something while I was out? I should have paper with me too. Maybe a pad of paper and a Hello Kitty pencil for each purse.”
“Lotion too,” Amberto suggests. “You don’t want your hands to get dry.”
“Scented lotion,” I add.
Emily’s eyes light up. “We cold get lots of different kinds of scents!”
I smile and nod. “See how smart we are? And we won’t be breaking your mommy’s rules.”
She raises her arms in the air in a small cheer. “I love spa day!”
“Wow, maybe I’ll adopt you as my aunt,” Amberto says to me.
Emily pulls her hands down and looks very seriously at him. “You can’t have her. She’s mine.”
**********
INTERRUPTING THE NAP
Amberto fixes us up with 11 small sized lotions, mostly fruity scents, 11 lip glosses, mostly light pinks, and 11 nail polishes, ranging in color from pink to orange to green to baby blue, some with sparkles and some without. The entire process takes forty-five minutes and he has as much fun picking them out as she does.
Then, when our spa day is over, we drive to the mall in Alexandria for Hello Kitty small notebooks and pencils and ice cream, and we finally pick up 11 packages of juicy fruit gum from a gas station on our to the townhouse.
We call Josh and Donna on the way, who are in hour number 9 of their napping, and they’re getting up and ready for us now. Some of that time they were really napping, right?
When we walk in, Emily shouts her usual greeting and Josh comes barreling down the stairs like he hasn’t seen her in a month, whisking her off her feet and spinning her around the room. “You’re all spa’d up!” he says to her.
“I smell good too, Daddy!” she laughs and he hugs he close to him and smells her.
“That’s how Mommy smells when she leaves there too.”
“It’s lotion. Peach.”
“Yum!” he says, smiling. “Maybe I should eat you.”
“You can’t eat me Daddy. I’m too big to fit in your tummy.”
“That’s true.” He sits her down as Donna comes down stairs in pajama bottoms and a tank top.
“Hi Princess. Did you have fun?”
“I got to play in the mud and put green stuff on Aunt CJ and I got my toetails painted green and my fingertails painted pink, with sparkles,” she says, rushing her words together and holding her hands out for Donna to see. “And Amberto says hi.”
“He does, huh?”
“Yes. And Aunt CJ didn’t make me eat the yucky lunch. She brought me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cause she loves me.”
Donna smiles down at her. “So slick, what’ya got in the bags?”
“No outfit, no shoes, and no purse, thank you very much,” I say.
“Lotion, nail polish, lip gloss, gum, paper and a pencil for each of my purses.”
Donna looks up at me. “CJ Cregg…”
“I was told no outfits, no shoes, and no purses,” I say cutting her off as Emily pours the contents of the bag out on the floor and sits down.
She puts her hands on her hips. “So, one of these days I’ll say that and you’ll buy her a car?”
I shrug and sit down on the floor next to Emily to start separating. “Probably.” Emily leans in with a smile and kisses me on the cheek.