MOM WITHOUT MAKEUP by Andrea Goto

Ava and Anna: The Parenting Council

I’m not maternal by nature. I wasn’t raised around small children. I babysat, but not well. The first week Ava was home, I frantically called the pediatrician about that terrifying soft spot on the front of her skull. He was kind enough not to laugh—my neighbors weren’t.

What I didn’t learn from hands-on experience came from a book—the book as far as I’m concerned: The Baby Whisperer. It didn’t tell me I should recreate the womb in order to soothe my crying baby (seriously, we have to leave the womb sooner or later people!) nor did it recommend letting my child  “cry it out.”  Cry what out? A stomach full of formula that she just urped after working herself in to a total frenzy? In the book, she (Tracy Hogg, may she rest in womb-like peace) speaks my language; she believes that “every child is a snowflake” and must be respected as an individual. But once you figure out the kid you’ve been dealt, she suggests putting the child on a strict schedule. Since nothing was instinctual for me, I was happy for the guidance. As my daughter survived and thrived in spite of a few clipper-nicks to her fingertips and one minor head trauma involving a light hanging from the ceiling, I grew confident. I stopped consulting The Baby Whisperer and went rogue. I became “Mommy.”

Once you really become “Mommy,” you no longer take anyone’s crap. Passive-aggressive comments from judgy women roll off your pack like spit up.

“Oh. She’s not crawling yet?”

No. We carry her everywhere in hopes that she will never gain the ability.

“Oh. She doesn’t eat mashed potatoes? Every child likes mashed potatoes.”

No. She prefers the flesh of judgy women.

Once I started tuning out the haters, I was left with my own commonsense, which wasn’t getting me too far. So I began to take parenting tips from Ava and her friends. Because here’s the thing: they’re brutally honest but without all the judgy.

For instance, I didn’t know it was time to move Ava out of her crib because she never bothered to climb out (probably an effect of carrying her so much). She’d wake, yelling my name—and by that point it was more like: “Hey, Mom, can you come here please?” I’d struggle to lift her 35 lb. body from a prone position.

“Ava, it would help if you would at least stand up.”

“But I’m stuck.”

Looking down, I noticed that her feet were jammed against the foot of the crib, her head smooshed into the opposite end.

“Whoa, you need a bigger bed, Ava.”

“You think?”

OK, she didn’t actually say, “You think.” My sister would’ve said that, mocking my stupidity, but not my sweet Ava. She simply agreed, without passive-aggressively questioning the fitness of my parenting even when the situation seemed to call for it.

Last week Ava’s friend Anna came over to play. Anna is a precocious little girl who is one year older than Ava but shares her affinity for impersonating princesses and ballerinas. Anna has taught me a lot. Granted, her approach is a bit more assertive than Ava’s, but I appreciate her guidance nonetheless.

When Anna asked for some water, I brought it to her in one of Ava’s sippy cups.

“Uh, I don’t use sippy cups,” she said, pronouncing “sippy” as if spurned her just to utter the word.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Was there some recall I didn’t know about?

“I drink out of regular cups.”

“Oh, right. I mean, yeah, so do we. Where did that cup come from anyway?” I bought a set of “regular cups” the next day.

When I was coloring with the girls, I asked to borrow Anna’s pink crayon.

“It’s not pink,” she said.

“Yes it is.” I’m pretty sure I got this one, kid.

“No, it’s magenta.”

Touché, Anna. Touché.

Here I’ve been sticking to the Crayola 8-pack, forcing my child to live in a vanilla-bean-flavored world. Who knew kids could see in shades and nuances?

Anna did, of course.

I now invite Anna over on a regular basis and listen carefully for her to dole out parenting advice she doesn’t even intend to share.

For now, this works. Eventually I may need to confer with adult professionals—but for now I go straight to the source.

At least until “the sources” catch on.

“Know thyself”

                                    –Someone Ancient

I’ve been trying to figure myself out for 32 years. I’ve had a few missteps along the way­ (can you say Nirvana-inspired flannel?), but I’m making progress.

That said, I still have a ways to go. For instance, each month I am convinced that my husband has morphed into the devil spawn, only to discover that I have PMS … again. And it isn’t obvious to me that I’m steam cleaning the carpet and mending socks because I’m trying to avoid a writing assignment. And for some reason, I’ve spent a decade ordering the grisly Bourbon Chicken at the mall, even though it always makes me feel as if I’ve consumed a vat of petroleum jelly.

“God, this is so disgusting,” I say, flicking away the bits of yellowy fat.

“Then why do you always order it?” asks Ray, who happily devours his own Bourbon bites, fat globules and all.

Maybe eating Food Court Bourbon Chicken is my penance for mowing down that kitten along HWY 67 in ’05. Or maybe I just don’t know myself all that well.

My daughter, on the other hand, seems to have a firm grasp on her likes and dislikes, especially when it comes to food. Whenever she makes a request, she always adds “with no ickies” as if I was most certainly going to sprinkle her macaroni with a dozen ickies before serving it to her.

You see, ickies fall into a rather large category of perfectly edible items, including anything green and flecky (basil), black and beady (pepper), translucent (onion), or any piece of non-icky food that appears suspicious. For example, a hair-like string of cheese hanging from a slice of pizza is icky. The slightest remnant of bread crust also falls into the amorphous icky category. Sometimes I can remove the offending icky without too much trauma, but often the contamination spreads too quickly and the entire plate must be discarded.

My mother­­–an exceptional cook–was deeply offended the first time my daughter informed her that the scrambled eggs she lovingly prepared were covered with ickies (Mom had sprinkled cheese on Ava’s scrambled eggs and while Ava loves scrambled eggs and cheddar cheese, she does not love it when they mate).

“Just eat it,” Mom said.

“No. It’s icky!” whined Ava.

“Well, too bad. Eat it anyway.”

Ava cried and I stepped in, unable to bear the thought that my child was developing an unhealthy relationship to food way too soon. 

“I’ll just make her some plain eggs,” I said.

“You can’t give her everything she wants!”

I don’t let her disrespect adults or pull the tails of small animals, and I only let her eat from the floor like our cat once. But I do handpick the vanilla-bean flecks from her ice cream. Too much? Maybe, but here’s the thing: my little apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

My husband likes to eat candy corn, but not the white tips, and he only eats green beans canned by the Green Giant. I only eat a brownie’s crusty edge, and I can’t tolerate sugar on fresh fruit. Ava eats the Oreo’s icing, and she insists that her Pop-Tart be de-edged before she eats it (if you’re wondering, edges are ickies too). I could go on, but then my special family would never get another invitation for dinner.

In the end, it all boils down to a matter of taste, not faulty parenting. By respecting my daughter’s desire to have an icky-free meal, I helping to foster her sense of self. I’m honoring her individuality. Maybe by the time she’s 32, she’ll at least know to steer clear of the Bourbon Chicken.

Eating Grammie's ickies in Eastern Washington

All parents have been there at one time or another. Usually, it’s when the little peanut is still in utero that we begin our list of things that we, as parents, will never do. Many of these rules were inspired by watching my friends set enviable standards; some were inspired by watching my friends make what I considered egregious parenting errors.*

At one point, I vowed that I would never buy my child plastic high heels (we have 6 pairs, and counting), makeup (she has her own bag of last-season M.A.C. castaways), or Barbies (we completed our princess collection this afternoon, when I tore the new Tiana from the store shelf, nearly rendering some drippy-nosed kid unconscious. When I presented Tiana to Ava­–after picking up the other kid from the floor­–she said, “Who’s that?” Okay, the movie hasn’t come out yet, but when it does, every kid is going to want Tiana. And who has her? I do. I mean, Ava does).

But the one thing that I felt most strongly about­–one thing that could not be compromised­–had to do with a tiny-butted little yellow sponge. Yep, no “SpongeBob SquarePants” in my house.

The first couple of years went by pretty well. Ava liked the standard “Curious George” (snore) and “Clifford” (really, people, how hard is it to keep that dog drawn to scale? He’s either two-heads taller than Elizabeth, or he’s the size of a tugboat. Pick one). Then she evolved into “Sesame Street,” which I mostly enjoyed with the exception of that whinny Baby Bear, whom I wanted to set on fire. But one day while I was flipping channels, SpongeBob flashed across the screen in all his Technicolor glory. 

“Stop!” Ava cried.

“What?” I asked.

“Go back.”

 “No.”

“Go back.”

Really, what did I have to fear? My highly advanced 3-year-old would not fall for such buffoonery. It’s not cute, it’s not funny, and it doesn’t have a princess.

I didn’t account for subliminal messaging.

That’s the only way I can account for how SpongeBob and his rag-tag gang of undersea pals (and one squirrel) have made their way into our once respectable lives.

Ava’s enthusiasm for the show has been unmatched by any other program. Plus, it’s always on. A SpongeBob marathon is there for me when I need to make dinner, or when I need to get her to stop crying.

And here’s the kicker. I initially couldn’t stand the show, but I wasn’t really watching it. I would just hear the nonsense from the other room. But once, just once, I looked. The show was titled “Fungus Among Us” which made me laugh since my mom always warned my sister and me not to catch the fungus amungus that lingered on shopping cart handles. I laughed along with Ava throughout the entire episode, and caught myself saying, “That SpongeBob is so crazy.” To which Ava responded, “I know mommy. I know.”

If you don’t think it’s funny that SpongeBob has a pet snail named “Gary” who meows like a cat, then go ahead and judge. Otherwise, you gotta check this out.

But I’m not buying the SpongeBob bedding. Ever.

*Yes, I did judge you, but that was before I entered the trenches myself. Please accept Ava’s six months of not sleeping through the night as my penance.