Four year olds and sparkly lips

Yesterday, my almost five year old daughter, Rose, wanted to go to the coffee shop. I assumed she wanted to go to the one we'd been to on Tuesday (i.e. the one that is mainly a play area.) Nope, she wanted to go to a little Italian one (with no play area or toys) instead. The only other thing on our agenda was a trip to the library to read and both places are close to each other so I said sure. Rose put her purse (a stuffed Chihuahua bag the same color as Paris Hilton's Tinkerbell) over her shoulder and off we went.

After she finished her hot chocolate, Rose placed her purse on her table. "It's time to put on my make-up."

"Make up?" I asked.

Rose nodded. "I need to do my lips."

I wasn't sure what this meant so I just sat back and watched. She removed a tube of Disney Princess Chapstick. She carefully took off the lid and rubbed it across her lips.

"Good job," I said.

She put away the tube. "I'm not done, Mommy."

Next, she pulled a mini tube of pink lipstick with a picture of Sleeping beauty on it. She rubbed that on her lips.

"Oh, what a nice touch," I said. "Your lips are shinier now."

She gave me one of those looks as she put the lipstick away. "I'm still not done, Mommy."

I'm not much into makeup. Lately I've been using a bit of a tinted moisturizer and a dab of mascara and that feels like a lot to me. "Sorry."

Rose held a tube of pink princess lip gloss, the kind with a sponge on the end, in her hand. She carefully ran the gloss over her bottom lip, dipped the sponge back into the tube and then glossed her top lip. She screwed the top back on and placed it in her purse. She looked inside the bag. "Oh no."

"What?" I asked.

"I forgot my mirror," she said with a pout.

"Let me see."

She looked up at me.

Remember how women wanted to know what lipstick Monica Lewinsky had used in her television interview with Barbara Walters because her lips looks so good? This was pretty close.

Rose had gotten a lovely color, perfect gloss and just the right sparkle from her three step combo. I removed an extra bit of gloss from the corner of her mouth. "You're lips are perfectly sparkly."

She beamed. "Thank you."

"So how did learn how to do this?" I asked, knowing it wasn't from watching me.

"Mackenna taught me," she said.

Hmmm. My nine year old knows how do this? Forget hitting the Bobbi Brown counter. Maybe I should be asking my nine year old for some make up tips instead?

Who taught you to put on make-up? Do you wear make-up a lot, sometimes or never?