The Spa Party

Every now and then, a father must take a stand. He must sacrifice himself for the common good, and do the right thing for his family, regardless of established convention. He must offer up his services so that his seed can move forward in their march toward responsible adulthood.

My time came on Saturday, March 1, 2014. And while I'm no stranger to raising daughters (almost 11 years of experience and counting), this particular event may end up being a turning point in my life.

Just ask the girls who painted my toes.

Sophia turned eight on February 27. For the big celebration, Tanya organized a spa party for Sophia and her friends. Tanya created an organic banana facial cream as well as a brown sugar foot scrub. They set up finger and toe nail painting stations and warm foot baths. The girls wore their bathing suits under bathrobes, pranced around the house in slippers, sipped soda in champagne glasses with strawberries on the rim, all while Enya played soothingly in the background. This was as close to a real spa as we'll ever get in our basement.

The Spa Girls

I was ready to help with the party. I was envisioning hanging out with the girls in the basement, maybe fetching a drink or getting one of the warm foot baths filled up, helping cook dinner. This was, after all, a girls party. I'm just Dad. What do I know about this stuff?

"Natalie" and "Sally" and Zebulon's pre-pedicure feet

I got home from work, changed, and headed down to the basement to revel in the contagious giggles of elementary school girls. I sat on the couch next to one of the kids who was casually flipping through a magazine. Then Tanya says, "You're in charge of foot scrubs."

Uh, excuse me?

"They soak their feet in the warm foot massage bath, then you dry them off and rub the brown sugar scrub on there."

I stared.

Rachel at the spa

"It exfoliates. Then you rinse it off in the bath and put moisturizer cream on their legs."

"Oh. So that's my job?"

"Yup. You wanted to help, right?"

For all you non-husbands out there, the correct answer is always "Yes."

I got to work.

At first I was feeling some combination of embarrassed, mortified, humbled and emasculated. But I played along because, well, I had to. Remember my first paragraph.

They all had picked fake names: Tanya was Maria, Sophia was Natalie, Ella was Diva. So I dug deep and decided my name would be Zebulon. And I actually had fun once I allowed myself to. The foot scrub thing wasn't too bad, and the girls got a kick out of it. The party went as 8-year-old-girl-sleepover-birthday parties usually go: laughing, screaming, being silly, eating, making a mess, a few crying spells, a couple of arguments, some hurt feelings, making up, taking a kid home at 11:00 because she couldn't sleep, and the same stuff all over again the following morning.

And I got that pedicure I needed, just in time for our spring break Cabo vacation.

Zebulon's Awesome Toes: Beach Ready