Aurora Wells

For the past 30 years or so, I’ve felt that Olympics mascots were just short-lived cartoon characters without any good shows or movies to call their own. Then the five-ring circus descended upon my town, and those bloody mascots started showing up everywhere you look, on buses and bus shelter ads, in drugstores and department stores, bookstores and supermarkets, friends’ blogs and relatives’ living rooms. They are completely inescapable, and, like the Borg, totally irresistible. On the first day of the Olympics I was feeling rather “in the spirit”, so I let myself be swayed by the nagging child and broke down partway. I refused to buy an obscenely overpriced stuffie, but I bought Aurora a small pin and a little book about the mascots, because it had really cute illustrations, which was most of the appeal for me.

By reading the book, we got to know the mascots’ back stories (you can skip this paragraph if you have zero interest). Miga is a sea bear who got stuck halfway while transforming between her orca whale and spirit bear incarnations. She loves to surf in the summer and snowboard in the winter. Quatchi is a young sasquatch who, besides wanting to be a great hockey goalie, is really into travel photography. Sumi is a part whale, part bear, and part Thunderbird guardian spirit who is really inspired by the Paralympic athletes. And Mukmuk, the rare Vancouver Island Marmot, is not an “official” mascot, but merely a sidekick.

So then I was hooked. But still, the scope and magnitude of the Olympics merchandising freaked me out. I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the world, but here in Vancouver it’s totally overwhelming. Brian and I long ago published a moratorium on bringing any more stuffed animals or dolls into the house, and I was determined to stay strong, despite my daughter’s impassioned pleas to let her “just hug” one of those darned “Olympics Guys” each time we entered a store selling them.

Enter: The Potty Chart. Our previously potty-trained toddler was firm in her opposition to using the potty, even though we tried giving her a few months of no-pressure diaper time. A friend suggested bribery, in the form of a sticker-reward chart, which seemed to work with her kid. After five months of a potty boycott, we were game to try it. Aurora was pretty excited about earning the first ten stickers, which would lead to a prize. But the prize ended up being a book, and she gets those all the time, thanks to our multiple library trips per week. She showed no interest in earning an eleventh sticker until I hinted that an Olympics Guy might be the reward. She was super-excited about that possibility. Little did she know that I planned to make a set of papercraft mascots with card stock, scissors and glue.

I worked hard for about an hour and a half the night before she was due to earn her second potty prize, and finished the Quatchi guy, on the left. She did her 20th potty pee right before quiet time, so I gave her Quatchi and put her in the crib. She was over the moon, and I could hear her playing happily with him for about half an hour. Then the happy play noises turned into screams of agony, and I rushed into her room. “CHACHI! CHACHI! I HURT CHACHI, MOMMY!” She had been holding Quatchi by the arms and making him jump when the paper gave way to the stress of a gentle two-year-old’s play. The diagonal bisection of Quatchi’s head, along with the dismemberment of both his arms, reminded me of the scene in Rob Roy when Liam Neeson cleaves his enemy Tim Roth in two with his broadsword, but unlike those foes, Aurora loved Quatchi. She had just killed her best friend, and she felt horrible about it. For the rest of the day she was inconsolable, clinging to me for hugs and reassurance, and throwing temper tantrums when I abandoned her to make dinner or use the bathroom. I quickly made another paper Quatchi, but I felt bad about giving her a prize that couldn’t really be played with.

So, here’s the conundrum: We’re trying not to spoil our child with too much stuff. We’re trying not to over-consume in our materialistic culture. We’re trying not to fill our small house with more crap than we can manage. We have a lot of reasons NOT to buy these stuffed toys. The only reason to buy them is because Aurora really, really wants them. So here’s what the compromising of one’s ideals looks like:

Last night, acting on the news that the mascots had gone on sale, Daddy came home with a set of all four Olympics Guys, and became a little girl’s hero. Bedtime was delayed by an hour because she was too keyed up to sleep, and all five of them ended up sharing the same pillow. Nighty-night, sweetie. We love you.

Now that Aurora is talking, really talking, some of those gosh-darned, cutest-thing-you-ever-heard things keep popping out of her mouth. Here are a few recent ones:

I have a Seuss character t-shirt, and Aurora now recognizes almost every guy on the shirt, but she didn’t know Horton the elephant. I went to some trouble to get a copy from the library, and when we picked it up I immediately read it to her. She loved it, but for about 24 hours she insisted that the title was “Tim Horton Hears a Who.”

When we walked into a store the other day, Aurora saw the ubiquitous stuffed Olympics mascots (which she calls “Lympics Guys”), ran over to them, picked up one and proclaimed, “He is my BEST FRIEND!” as if that would convince me to let her take him home.

I love that Aurora squeals “MacDonald!” with glee when the automated bus-voice chimes, “MacDonald Street”. She has no idea what MacDonalds restaurant is. She thinks the street is named after Donald Duck.

Today I read the modern classic The Paper Bag Princess to Aurora at lunchtime. Afterwards she decided that for the rest of the day she would be not Elizabeth, the brave and clever princess who managed to save her fiancé from the hungry dragon while wearing nothing but a brown paper bag, but Ronald, the spoiled prince who didn’t thank her but chose to criticize her mode of dress. Aurora said that as Ronald, she/he would not be mean to Elizabeth, but rather would try to be a better boy from now on.

Because it’s not enough to title a kid’s gymnastics class, “2-3 year olds” they give them cutesy names like the one above. However, I like this particular name for two reasons; one, Aurora really thinks jellybeans are, like, totally, the best dessert; and two, gymnastics is almost completely about jumping on the trampoline for her. The climbing and the hanging from the bars and the rolling and stuff are all the crap she has to get through to get to the trampoline part of the circuit, which she never wants to leave.

We had some difficulty at the start of our session, because we arrived late, and hungry, and I really tried to push her to participate. I was ready to quit until I realized that this was a great opportunity for me to learn how to “handle” Aurora, just as much as an opportunity for her to get some exercise & learn some new skills. I still have trouble remembering not to grab her and make her do the things she’s “supposed to” do, but now we always come early and eat lunch in the lobby before our class arrives. If she’s the first one there (and well fed), she’s much more comfortable, and a tiny bit more bold about trying new things.

I didn’t want to take too many pictures in class, mostly because I need to spot her when she’s hanging on monkey bars & such, but I took a couple in the lobby beforehand.

Perhaps the oddest look of concentration I’ve ever seen (she’s playing with a bead-and-wire toy on a table).

We also got a chance to visit the Chilliwack Wellses last Saturday, and drop off all the baby essentials that we could cram into our little car. Brian has the crazy idea that if there was an emergency in the middle of the night, that you should be able to make it to the front door of your house without falling over anything. Now that Jim & Lori have a cradle, glider-rocker, and boxes of toys and bedding, we can make it through the house without quite so much trouble. I now understand the pleasure Jenn and Vanessa took in unloading truckloads of baby stuff for us before Aurora was born!

I can’t believe I haven’t already done this, but Grandma Gail pointed out that I never posted pictures of the sea life mural that Daddy and I painted on Aurora’s walls. These pictures were mostly taken before she was born, but there’s one with furniture at the end, featuring the cradle that until recently graced the East wall.

Thank you to Grandma Gail for helping us paint the fishies! We’re hoping that Aurora will like the mural until she’s ten or older, but recently she told me that she just wanted plain white walls in her bedroom. Hopefully it’s just one of those two-year-old contrariness things!

Not as catchy as “Fox in Socks on Knox in Box”, but you write what you know, eh? The winter blahs are upon us in the form of colds that Aurora gets for a week and then passes on to Mommy and Daddy. The good news is that the weather has been mild, and at times, delightful. We had the loveliest weather in months this past week, and the garden and the park beckoned. I took a few pictures, so you can see what Aurora looks like at 28 months. I know it’s been a while since I got my camera out much. I’ll try to do better.

We’re reading a book called “Dinosaurs Galore!” right now, which inspired Aurora to armor-plate herself with grape halves at dinner one night. I don’t know if Stegosaurus would have had as much luck against Tyrannosaurus Rex if grapes were his defense. Perhaps if Rex had Gummy Bear teeth?

Then there’s the good old standby for entertainment; hair clips. Still fun.

Although we’re avoiding the play gyms and such, trying not to contaminate the rest of society, we do get to the park when it’s warm and dry enough, like it was last Wednesday. Love soaking up that sun – mmmmm.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Minnie, Daisy and Goofy, the core characters of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Disney’s animated educational show for preschoolers. However, unless you have your own small TV fiends, you’re probably unaware of Toodles, the most intriguing new Disney character to come along in decades. It (neither a he nor a she) is an omniscient, all-powerful being who supplies Mickey and friends with whatever tools they might possibly need in order to solve their problems, no matter where they are (even on Mars), as soon as they call, “Oh, Toodles!”. At the start of the show, Mickey goes to an incredibly complex-looking computeresque machine, tells it what job they are about to undertake, and Toodles pops out, dials spinning and lights flashing. Toodles is pre-loaded with three or four objects that will eventually get M & Co. out of whatever bind they find themselves in. The thing that I find incredible is that it is really hard to tell in advance how they could possibly use the random assortment of objects Toodles displays. Here’s an example:

In this episode, Mickey and Goofy need to return a lost baby bird to its mother in the forest. How do the tools come into play? The bird needs a snack (blueberries) and warmth (tiny blanket) on their hot-air balloon trip to the forest. The question mark indicates the “mystery mousketool”, which in this case turned out to be a baby elephant, which came in handy when their balloon went too high in the air. When they found the right tree in the forest, Goofy ended up using the pogo stick to bounce up high enough to jump on to the highest branch, which held the baby bird’s nest. Preposterous? Well, it’s a show meant to teach kids the fundamentals of math and problem solving, not physics. You should see the “rubber ball bounces to Mars” or “Daisy, Minnie and Pluto are lifted by a bunch of balloons” episodes!

When Aurora started watching this show a couple of months ago, she would assign us various characters to be throughout the day. I like being Goofy (”Gawrsh!”), but the character I most identify with is Toodles. Daddy and I call out “Oh, Toodles!” each evening at bedtime when we need help brushing Aurora’s teeth. But as a Mommy, I seem to have Toodles’ job description all day. When we are out and about, I am expected to provide immediately, upon request, any number of helpful objects; a variety of foods and drinks, clothes for extra warmth or in case of accidents; books or toys for entertainment; tools for pottying, cutting things up, writing things down; in addition to all the usual purse stuff like wallet, keys, sunglasses, and so on and so on. The real Toodles never has to carry more than four things, even if sometimes those things are as big as an elephant (literally). For the sake of my back, I’ve been taking the stroller almost everywhere, so I can hitch the backpack on the handles or plop it down on the seat when Aurora decides to walk.

So the next time you see us, just holler, “Oh, Toodles!” and I’ll be happy to provide you with whatever you need, even if you didn’t know prescisely what it was until I handed it to you. Then we can break into the Hot Dog Dance. Good times!