Yesterday I found myself eating a half eaten soggy Teddy Gram cracker becuase I didn't want to stand up and throw it away. Wow. I am officially a gross mom. A friend recently posted on her facebook page "You know you are a mom when you take a sip from your daughter's sippy cup to swallow your Tylenol." We all find ourselves doing things we would have screeched at when we were young and childless. But we all seem to draw that line, for ourselves and our children, at a different place. Yours may start and end with Purell, mine begins at wiping my hands off with a diaper wipe and seems to end with her crawling around on the Arundle Mills Mall Food Court Floor (I can feel half of you shutter). I brought her into River Hill High School for the Childhood Development class to observe her and they asked me why I was so relaxed considering most first time mothers are so much more cautious (I think she had just fallen on her head). I don't know...maybe I am just lazy.Last week we had a play date with a beautiful sweet little 2 year old (who is not afraid of Scarlett) and they were playing in the mulch. But that is where her wonderful and loving mother (who I can not say enough nice things about) drew her line. Come snack time said friend refused to allow her child to hold her pretzel with her dirty hands. After much crying and a trip inside to wash her hands, Scarlett's friend ate her snack cleanly. I handed Scarlett her pretzel right into her dirty hand. I often say to people "she isn't in daycare so she has to get her immunities somewhere." Frankly, it isn't about laziness, I just don't care. Ok I don't not care about my kid, but I guess I don't think it will hurt her. Scarlett will just have to get used to her friends having better mothers then she does.
Funny thing is, I spent that whole afternoon adjusting her hair bow. I have been thinking about this for a long time and I have come to this conclusion: I'm nuts. I know what you're thinking...that isn't new news. But hear me out. I legitimately don't think eating mulch (in small quantities) will hurt her. Disclosure: I am neither recommending you let your child do that, nor am I criticizing parents that don't, in anyway. So I let her do dirty things on a regular basis and my line keeps getting lower and lower and lower. However, I care greatly that she looks adorable while she is being dirty. Why? Because I don't think the dirt is hurting her so I let her do it. But I do seem to care on at least some level what other people think. Since I am not willing to fight with her about pretzels and dirt I mask it with a pretty bow or a fluffy skirt, or both.
Boys have better toys, girls have better clothes. What mother doesn't like dressing up their little girl but I don't think any one would argue that I take it to the next level. A Toddlers and Tiaras reference has been made on more then one occasion. She never leaves this house without a coordinated cute outfit, with a matching bow and shoes. Every single time. My resolve is actually quite remarkable. And bless her little soul she has gotten into the groove of this. I give her choices and she likes picking out outfits and shoes and without fail she picks the fluffiest outfit possible. She loves to go shopping. I give her choices, I approve of, and she chooses. Side note, she is a bit of a clepto. I have to check her hands before we leave a store. She grabs things off racks or shelves. Sometimes she becomes obsessed with something truly ugly and we fight over it a bit, but in the end I have to sign the receipt so deal baby, deal.
I am going to take this one step further and divulge that I think there is a more deep seeded issue at hand. I have mentioned before that one of the things I have struggled with the most is the lack of accomplishment I feel at the end of the day. How do I evaluate my daily work? Especially coming from such a results oriented career, not having test results is rather aggravating. Yay, I didn't kill the baby today! Yay, the baby didn't kill herself today! Yay, I did the dishes and cleaned the house and did the laundry and the baby is still alive...yeah right. But some people say "she is thriving, you must be doing a good job." I refuse to take credit for Scarlett rolling over, sitting up, crawling, walking, and talking. All I did was put her on her belly, propped her up a few times, put toys out of her reach, put better toys out of her reach, and spoke some words loudly and clearly. It's not that hard.
Ok keeping the baby alive is hard, but that other stuff she mostly did on her own. But when I take Scarlett out all dressed up I get all sorts of ooos and ahhs. As Cadence always points out to everyone at church "isn't Scarwet the most bewtiful baby in the whole word?" That's right I'll totally take a pat on the back from a 4 year old. By the way, Scarlett is not the most beautiful baby in the whole world. I love my child dearly, but she ain't no Gerber Baby. When she isn't all dressed up she is a long, skinny baby, rather monkey looking.
We had her pictures taken today and becuase it is mother's day weekend, the whole world brought their babies in to have pictures take. Scarlett was by no means the cutest baby there. She doesn't have the rosie cheeks, or the chubby legs, or the cute little bottom teeth. But everyone was mesmerized by her somewhat ridiculous outfit to the point that the cries of "Mommy that baby pulled my hair! Mommy that baby bit me! Mommy she trampled over me! Mommy that baby stole my juice!" were laughed away. Frankly she has to be adorable becuase it distracts people from realizing she is actually a chimp who is patrolling her territory in the jungle. FYI if you go to Picture People around a holiday bring a lot of toys and food. We waited 45 mins, during which she ate half of a Wetzel's Pretzel, two packets of Mum Mums, and two pouches.
That notion begs a serious question: how do we prepare our daughters for the real world? Where is the line between encouraging them to eat well and exercise and giving them body image issues? How do you not pass your own neuroses onto your children? I'm soooo not ready to answer that question but it is rapidly creeping up on me. I have a friend whose 4 year old daughter is refusing to wear the same outfit twice in a month and wants to wear make up like her Barbie. Believe me she didn't get this from home. Her parents are well adjusted people who read her appropriate books and let her watch a modest amount of appropriate tv and have never bought her a doll with fake lashes and blue shadow. Now she is now mad at her parents for taking away that Barbie that her friend gave her for her birthday.
No matter how much you want to shelter your child from these kinds of issues, you can't. You can only postpone it and sometimes that does a great deal of damage becuase you haven't prepared them for the inevitable. Is it a fine line between caring about your child's well being and becoming a pageant mom? I imagine it is much finer then we"normal" mothers think. I am sure it starts with a bow in her hair and somewhere along the line it becomes a tiara. Fortunately for me (and Scarlett), Pat would never let her compete in a pageant where she has to shake anything inappropriate.
I will leave you with my ick factor bottom line: her bottom on the floor of the food court at Arundle Mills Mall. We were there with several people and she had finished eating, got out of her high chair repeatedly, and I just couldn't keep her happy so I let her down to walk around. She takes about 5 or 6 steps at a time then she falls and decides to crawl the rest of the way. She started chasing this little boy and she is much faster crawling so off she went. Oh but that isn't even the best part. They are still building the Casino over there and at lunch time all the construction workers came in to take a break. They weren't exactly clean. I mean they weren't caked in dirt but they were dusty and sweaty and of course she was obsessed with them. She just kept going up to them and waving and saying hi and of course grabbing their shoes and their hard hats and screamed when I took her away. We car pooled so we couldn't leave till everyone was done. Given the choice between a screaming, angry baby, and a very happy but really gross and dirty baby...I let her play with the construction workers, on the floor of the Arundle Mills Mall food court floor, in a tutu. This is the part where you say ewww. Fortunately for me, Pat never reads my blog.
This post is dedicated to Erin Smart, Katie Florida, Jenni Humphrey, Aaron Danzig, and all the mother's out there who keep Purell handy and the mothers whose motto is: God made dirt, dirt don't hurt.
