Friday Morning at the Gorman Spread

Well, it's Friday morning, 7:12. I'm drinking my coffee and reading my newspapers on the internet. I've read that there was a horrible storm that raged through New York City yesterday and wrote to a friend who lives there to see if she's okay.
When I got up in the middle of the night to take my middle of the night too-much-liquid-for-my-kidneys-to-handle break, I noticed an empty box of curlers on the bathroom sink.
When I got up at 5:30 for good, I went to Madeleina's room door and called to her to ask her if she needed to get up early. She said she needed a smidge more sleep. Normally that would mean I'd be trying to wake her every 15 minutes for the next hour-and-a-half, but this time she was up on her own in a flash. She came bounding into the living room, some of her hair in long bouncing curls.
"Hey dad, check it out. Today's picture day so I thought I'd put curlers in to give myself a different look."
"You look gorgeous, baby."
"Yeah, except that this zit came out right here," she said, pointing to something I couldn't even see. "It's so ugly. And from a distance it makes it look like my nose is bleading. Plus I have such tiny eyelashes. Why don't I have your eyelashes? Why do you have such long beautiful lashes and I'm stuck with mom's?"
"They'll grow, don't worry."
"Not in time for picture day."
"Well, not by 10 this morning, no..."
"So, dad, what would you say if I--I mean, you know I don't use makeup because that's such a girly thing, but what if I used just a little today to cover up this zit?"
"Cool. Anything you like."
"Thanks, dad. You're the best."
Five minutes later she came back into my office/the front living room, this time with about 12 bracelets on each arm.
"Do you know that I have a lot of beautiful things? I mean, these are great. I just never wear them because I'm afraid I'll break them. Maybe I'll just wear the pink ones today. Because they go with the pink earrings and they're the hardest to break because they're plastic, not stone or silver or anything...."
"You rock, Macaroni."
"Thanks, dad!" And off she went.
Fifteen minutes passed. From the bathroom I hear, "You get off. Right now. And you, you get back into place and stay there. You hear me?"
"Who are you talking with, Madeleina? Yourself or you have company I don't know about?"
"Just these stupid curlers, dad. They're not staying in place. And the mascara is going in the wrong place."
"Excellent. Everything likes a little personal attention."
Five more minutes passed and out she came. "Can you come here, dad? I think I just poked myself in the eye with makeup and now I can't see."
I took a look and got the tiny bit of dabbing cream out of her eye.
"Thanks, dad. I guess I'm just not good at these girly things..."
"I don't think make up skills are something you're born with, darlin. I think that's a practiced skill."
"I should probably ask mom....but I don't really need to because I don't like things like makeup yet..."
No, I thought. But you're starting to lean in that direction.
My baby's growing up, I guess.
Good for her.