staying beautified

A women goes through a lot to look good (unless your name is Megan Fox, then you don't go through quite as much).


We dye our hair, paint our nails, cram our feet into shoes that definitely lack the right arch support.  Not to mention the tanning, exfoliating, plucking, shaving, waxing, moisturizing... then there's expensive hair cuts.... bras that lift and thongs that aren't visible... make-up that takes away the red spots and undereye illuminators to covers the dark circles, brow pencils, eyeliner, bronzer, lip plumper, lash curlers... curling and flat irons, hair mouse, hair spray, hair shining gloss... heel scrubbers.
We sit on yoga balls instead of office chairs and order salads instead of cheesesticks, yogurt instead of ice cream.
On top of all of that crap (that occurs almost daily, some weekly, a few less than monthly), we work, clean, take care of the kids, go to school, walk the dog, and try to squeeze in some time to occasionally spend with our signifigant other (the one we seemingly do all of the beautification for in the first place).  If we are lucky we have time to eat and if we are really lucky we have time to put on sweats and sit down for 5 minutes of peace and quiet at the end of the day.


And what I have discovered about being a mommy when it comes to beauty routines is you have to all of a sudden do it all on a budget.  Even if you had the money for a sitter, you end up spending most of your beauty budget on formula and more toys to trip on every morning when you run into the babies room (because it is usually still dark outside at this point and you can't see them) and that just doesn't leave anything left over for visits to your "hair girl" anymore.  Yep, you don't get to even relax in the salon for a couple hours every other month while someone else colors your hair and actually asks you how YOUR day is going.  You have to start buying at home color kits again (like you did when you were 14 and your parents wouldn't even think of paying $150 for you to alter your "God-given" beauty at a salon).  And you have to wait for sales on good cosmetics and products or else resort to using wet'n'wild brand or sulfate filled suave again.
As a mommy you soon find yourself standing in the bathroom, legs apart (so the self-tanning lotion on your unshaven legs can dry evenly and the nail polish on your toes doesn't get smudged),  hair-dye goop covering your head (and parts of your face and ears and neck and shirt), while holding a portable uv light up to your whitening gel covered snarled teeth, looking at the stray eyebrow hairs that need plucked and trying to ignore the new wrinkles creeping up around your eyes all while praying out loud that the baby doesn't wake up from his nap in the next 10 minutes.