Sunset Spa….

More nights than not there’s a stall tactic to either a) keep me in the girl’s room a little longer, b) let them stay awake a little longer c)have me entertain them with delicious stories of my youth (almost always 100% fabricated).

I indulge for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is because even Greg and I feel guilty about tucking them into their beds when the sun is busy bleaching their furniture. It’s still so bright at 8pm but whoever designed this house spent time ensuring this particular window would track the sun’s position in the summer sky to the millimetre and for that reason it seems cruel and unusual to ask them to close their eyes and attempt to get any rest.

The second is because even if they find my stories boring and wouldn’t trade playing Wii ski, blowing up balloons or riding bikes to hear them during the day, I now have their undivided attention regardless of whether they think they’re playing me.

Last night I was headed for the door when I was attacked with a wooden back massage tool that was being punched into the small of my back, the masseuse thinking I would melt to the floor a relaxed ball of jelly. Instead I turned in a karate stance expecting to punch a vertically challenged intruder in the neck.

Hanna: Welcome to your spa Madame.

Me: Hmmm. Okay, I’ll bite.

Ellie (in what I think might be a Middle Eastern accent): Pleasa, sit downa Madam.

Hanna (born in Britain but lived in Canada most of her adult life accent): Would this chair be to your liking?

Me: Indeed.

My treatments weren’t that far off from what I think an actual day spa might serve up. Given the girls see a Mom who spends basically zero minutes a day on personal grooming, the girls selected the 1L bottle of Huggies baby lotion to rub all over my feet and hands. Their technique was deliberate and I was impressed they knew enough to use cream with the added bonus of alleviating any skin irritation from urine.

Hanna (now from Brazil?): Are you getting ready for your date?

Me: Oh yes, my date.

Ellie: Is he RICH?

Oh dear. My spa treatment is now going to have to be a lesson in money isn’t everything and I was so enjoying the tingling of the zinc oxide in between my toes.

Before I could begin my speech about finding someone who makes you happy regardless of income they were squirting my face with more cream and pushing me back on the bed. This relaxing day spa is feeling slightly more like a form of torture and I’m waiting to be gagged with an iCarly night mask, tarred with glitter glue and sent to a Taylor Swift karaoke contest.

Ellie begins brushing my fingernails with a set of Cinderella pick-up sticks. She jabs me every now and again but that’s the price of beauty I guess. She asks me to close my eyes and with the sharp end of the stick starts scraping my eyelids while pretending to, “putta on you eyeshadow yesa?”

Hanna tells Ellie to get her licey head away from her. This lack of professionalism simply would never fly in an actual Argentinean/Sri Lankan spa.

Hanna begins to rub my temples, make that eyeballs: You are getting very sleepy. Beware (now Turkish and extremely creepy whispering in my ear) of the world….

Hanna: Your feet are gross Mom.

Ellie: We should do Dad’s feet next.

Hanna: No that’s gross.

Ellie: They’re the same as Mom’s.

I’m not sure who should be more insulted.

Off I went smelling like diaper hoping the tiny incisions in my eyelids would heal by morning. My hair was combed sometimes with the two day old ponytail still intact, others with it pulled out. My back throbbed from the earlier jabs from an aggressive five year old shiatsu master and the tops of my legs were almost completely sunburnt from that dirty, rotten window.

But I felt great hanging with my two new favourite aestheticians, regardless of their insanely late hours of operation.

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