Baby's First Pedicure

One of the hard parts about having such a cautious child is that you really never know how she is going to react to new experiences. Something as simple as going to the movies can turn into a nightmare as she covers her ears and proclaims that it is too loud. Jumping in a bouncy castle at a birthday party is normally the highlight for kids. Not for my kid. She would stand outside and watch the other kids squeal with delight as they bounced all over the place. But she would scream and cry with a terrified look on her face if we ever put her near the entrance of one. It wasn't until well after she was 3 years old that she shocked us all by going in one at a festival. She loved it, of course, which made us all want to say something along the lines of, "SEE! WE TOLD YOU SO! ALL THAT CRYING FOR NOTHING."

But I digress.

The point is, I am slow to introduce her to new things because I never know which kid I am going to get. Will she scream and cry and throw a huge fit or will she think it is totally great and just relax and enjoy the experience? Sometimes it just isn't worth finding out.

I was feeling brave today, though, and decided to take Avery along with me when I met my mom for a pedicure. I talked to Avery about what it was going to be like so she would know what to expect but I have done that plenty of times before with no good results so I had a back up plan in my head just in case. I also drove separately from my mom so she could still enjoy herself if I had to take a screaming child home.

Turns out, Avery surprised the heck out of me. She loved it! She couldn't have been happier or more pleasant to be around. She was friendly with the staff and (probably overly) talkative with the guy who did her nails. THE GUY, which was something I did not think to prepare her for. Plus, she was in the kid's seat at the front of the salon while my mom and I were seated in the two furthest seats from her. She wasn't phased by that at all. My heart sort of burst with pride in the way she was behaving, which sounds silly because we are talking about a PEDICURE (and a manicure that she charmed herself into) but when you have a child who is always so tentative about every little experience, you celebrate your victories whenever you can. I really thought that she would either scream and cry or that she would sit there totally silent and slightly frightened while someone removed her nail polish, cut her nails (oh the agony!) and painted them a new color. I truly never expected her to enjoy it as much as she did.


Here's Avery introducing herself to the woman filling the water in her tub. She started by saying, "my name is Avery," and she shared with the woman that I told her to wear flip flops. The woman said absolutely nothing back to her but it didn't seem to bother Avery at all.
She sat right down in the chair and began soaking her feet after she picked out the "blue sparkly nail polish."
I attempted to play a video for her but the machine wasn't really working well. It didn't matter, though, because she was totally happy to just chat with this poor man. I couldn't always hear what she was saying but she talked the entire time. One time I did hear her tell him that her Grammie paints her nails red when she spends the night on the weekend.
She looked like such a big girl as she sat down at the other end of the shop and got her nails done as if she had done this 1000 times before. She's a natural at this whole pampering thing. I believe we have just opened up a whole new can of worms.
After she was done, she came over to where we were sitting to chat up the ladies and point out all the different colors in the shop. She was so excited she could hardly stop herself from jumping up and down. She danced around the room. Within a few minutes she had to go potty and when she came out of the restroom she expressed concern that washing her hands might ruin her paint job.

Oh yes. We have probably just uncovered the diva in her.

It was worth it, though, because seeing her take on that new experience so fearlessly gives me hope that we will see more and more of that behavior as she gets older. Today: The Pedicure. Tomorrow: perhaps she will be able to go to Sunday School without me there.

A mother can always dream.