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.