I have given up a lot since having kids.  I don’t mind 99.876349% of it.  Sleep, sanity and my figure are all perfectly acceptable sacrifices. Expected, understood… even cherished in a way.

And for many years I even gave up lipstick in my purse.  I knew that if I were going somewhere I had better darn well overload the lipstick because if any of my kids got a hold of my purse, that was going to the first casualty.

Whether it be that they colored themselves at a wedding head to toe when I forgot it was there and gave them my purse to rifle through so I could talk to an adult. Or they hijacked my purse while I was standing in line to check out and smeared it all over the display shelves.  Or they learned to work the child locks in my room and redecorated my dresser and carpet with my whole lip palette.  Whatever the reason, lipstick has been hidden like gold, locked away like a virgin, unseen and known about but anyone but me.

But this week at the store, I thought to myself, “I think it is time.  They are 5, 4 and 2 after all.  I can leave my purse out now and no one goes through it!  Maybe it IS time!”

So I bought my favorite color, tossed it in my purse, said a mini prayer for its safety, and enjoyed the few hours that I had pretty, Cocoa Brown Sugar, lips.  I had a spring in my step, a smile on my face, and an infantile joy running through my heart.

I was among the lipstick wearing crowd again.

And then today, almost 24 hours to the exact since I bought that coveted tube, my heart sank, my lips cracked in a frown and my feet fell flat in disappointment.

I walked in from emptying the car of two backpacks, three pairs of shoes that were strewn about after tumbling class and three cups that contained milk for a quick, on the road, snack and there sat my two youngest.  Colorful smears on their lips and hands were evidence of the demise of my brand new tube of Cocoa Brown Sugar.  The island was stained with the rich, perfect for my skin, color and the tube thrown on the ground discarded in a whim.

I. almost. cried.

Refraining from screaming, “ONE THING!  CAN’T I HAVE ONE THING?!” at my two little painted angels, I took a deep breath, picked up the tube gently – I couldn’t look at the devastation – and tossed her in the trash.  And then I walked away.

Vowing through the pain to gather a group of moms, tired of the lipstick massacres, to create the first ever Child-Proof Lipstick!  Who’s with me?

Find more Motherhood Posts at My Recent Writings

Like A Day in Motherhood on Facebook  and Subscribe to A Day in Motherhood.