I am allergic to cinnamon and bleach.  People seem to feel so sorry for me that I’m allergic to cinnamon.  Trust me; it’s no hardship when it causes you violent migraines that can last for days.  Or, if ingested, it can cause an outbreak that makes the mange look appealing.  I have learned that if I smell either one of them to run as if the plague were after me.  It turns out that my little one got my cinnamon allergy at least.  I TOLD someone I feared she might be allergic but they gave her cinnamon applesauce anyway.  My little two and a half year old (at the time) had a wickedly red, itchy stomach for days and she can still remember it.  So she knows to avoid it.  SOMEhow she got a hold of something with cinnamon and she ate it anyway.  Her face promptly broke out in a bumpy red rash that looked progressively worse as the day wore on.  I got a call from the school nurse asking permission to put some cortisone cream on it.  I told her she could put whatever she deemed necessary on her face to get it under control.  As fate would have it, my little one was up for a modeling audition the next day.  As we were standing in line I tried not to stare with horror at the massive red bumps around her lips.  “It looks bad,” she proclaimed.  Not wanting to lie, I just said that by now she knows what cinnamon looks and smells like and to just stay away from it in the future.  I could tell she was feeling self-conscious and that’s when I made the decision to bring her into a make-up store while we were just waiting around.  “We’re going in here for ME?!” she asked with no small amount of incredulity.  I let her know in no uncertain terms I did not approve of her wearing make-up.  This, however, was to cover up a bad rash on her face and I told her that in this case it was acceptable.  You can see by this picture she was so thrilled to be there!  I used to listen to my father complain that my mother never wore lipstick until he went off to Korea.  I love that he loved her just the way she was.  To me natural beauty always shines though.  The American singer Tina Turner said:

“My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself.  I don’t use special creams or treatments – I’ll use a little bit of everything.  It’s a mistake to think you are what you put on yourself.  I believe that a lot of how you look is to do with how you feel about yourself and your life.  Happiness is the greatest beauty secret.”

I wish for my little one to understand the key to happiness in all things lies within.