Last night I tore off my frumpy sixteen-months-post-partum-and-still-a-bit-dubious-around-the-midriff housewife mantle and decided to give myself a henna tattoo. ‘Cause I’m hip and with it. And ’cause Helpdesk Man had agreed to watch the baby while I hennaed my roots, and I was keen to savour the joys of standing naked in the bathroom under the heat lamp in blissful solitude. ‘Cause I’m hip and with it.
So with a nonchalant ease born of much cake decorating I terped my henna, constructed a cone out of wax paper and freehanded an attractive Art Nouveau design on my upper arm - curlicues, accents and little flowers. Very Rivendell. I was pleased. I wrapped the resulting artwork in gladwrap (harder than it sounds, incidentally) and settled down - with green eyebrows and a plastic bag over my head, ’cause I’m hip and with it - to watch Smallville with mein famille.
Then the baby decided with characteristic swiftness that she needed the milks NOW, and that the best way to get my attention regarding thus was to haul herself up by my arm and headbutt me in the face. Then later, she was coming through a doorway in the arms of her father when she decided to fling herself backwards, and in the resulting distress she burrowed her forehead into my upper arm and rubbed it back and forth.
By the time I got back to the shower, my curlicues had degenerated into a lumpy, misbegotten midden of doom. My left-hand bicep now looks like it has been infested with fake-tan fungus. Worse yet, the hot water ran out as I was halfway through rinsing the henna out of my hair and Helpdesk Man had to boil the kettle and rinse off my scalp in the sink - an intriguingly powerless experience which engineered childhood flashbacks of myself wailing “Mummyyyy, it’s going in my eyyyyyesss!”.
Even then, I was hip and with it.
Mother Says:
Miriam Says: