A Good Mother

The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.
Jill Churchill, O Magazine, May 2003

My husband came home over the weekend. I think he's starting to settle into a routine. He's incredibly intelligent (me, biased? never!), so I know that he'll do well in his new job.

We took my daughter to Toys 'R' Us on Saturday to spend the $15 remaining on her giftcard from Christmas. It's always fun to take her there. She likes to run around the store pulling at everything that she can reach on the shelves. We wanted to get her a doll. We were looking at the dolls when some unsuspecting 3 year old started playing nearby with the McDonald's Food Cart. Just one push of the button as she walked by set my little girl off. Oooh, the toy makes noise. And there are lots of buttons. She ran over to the McDonald's kitchen excitedly. Oh, no. I'm not going to get her any toys that prepare her for a career as a burger flipper. We carefully steered her back toward the dolls. No go. She ran back to the Mickey D's kitchen. We steered her toward the other food stuff. That worked. She knocked over all of the carefully stacked boxes. Okay, precariously stacked is a better word. I mean, really. Who puts sets of dishes (little plastic ones that come in boxes that are about 18 inches wide, 15 inches tall, and 2 inches thick) lined up in a row on the bottom shelf? That's just a cruel joke on parents who have to keep telling their children not to touch and running around behind them trying to keep them from falling over when our children breathe on them. We finally got her back to the baby dolls. There was one that she was semi-interested in, so we bought it.

She loves this doll! She drags it around by the hand and talks to it. She was playing quietly in her room, so I went in to check on her. She had the baby on the counter of her kitchen. She was moving its legs alternately up and down, and then she put them both up. She was changing its diaper. Then she decided that the baby needed a bath, so she turned on the water, pulled off the baby's hat (yes, unlike the picture above, our baby has a hat instead of a headband) and used it as a washcloth carefully and gently washing the baby's face. Apparently, the baby had dirty hair because she used the coffee pot as a cup to dump imaginary water over the baby's head. It was so cute to watch her playing with her doll.

But the best part was when we went to my parents house. My mom had gotten a little doll high chair and crib from a garage sale before my daughter was born. We had forgotten all about them, but we got them out yesterday to play with. The baby was carefully placed in the crib. Then, my daughter did something very funny and scary. The baby was not behaving properly. She would not go to sleep like a good little doll. When my daughter won't go to sleep, I will often go back in and tell her to lie down and go to sleep. I have unconciously added the hand gesture of pointing into her crib to emphasize my point. When the baby doll wasn't cooperating (meaning lying perfectly flat on her back perfectly centered in the crib -- yes, my daughter is a perfectionist), she started pointing. Oh, yes. The stern look was there too. The look and point.

Funny? Oh, yeah. It was hilarious. Everyone was laughing. You really couldn't help but laugh.

Scary? Even more so. She learned this great little trick from me.

She's at the age where she mimics everything! That includes Mommy's bad habits. But, that's okay. I never claimed to be the perfect mother.