I REMEMBER JENNY – AND THE TALKING NIGHTIE
“Jenny! Time to put on your gown,” I optimistically announced, holding it up with my best used-car salesman smile.
“No, I don’t want to,” my then two-year old Jenny recited.
“It’s nice and pink and soft and pretty,” I urged.
“I don’t want to.”
“It has a pinky ribbon and some whitey lace”
“Yuk!”
“Yuk? You hurt its feelings.” Turning to the gown I say, “Talk, Mr. Nightie, and tell Jenny how you feel.” Then some strange undiscovered acting urge emerged from me and with a twinkle-toed voice I began a dialogue with Jenny while sneakily unbuttoning and changing her. (After all, those how-to parenting books encourage distraction for negative behavior patterns.)
“Hi, Jenny. My name is Pinky Gown. All day long you play and I wait. I wait. I wait, wait, wait, wait, wait! You eat, you bathe, you watch T.V. I wait. I wait for you to put me on. (sigh).
“Okay, little Pinkie,” Jenny says, “I’ll put you on.”
Now normally I would stop here. But this time I seemed to be carried away with the part of Pinky. I knew Those Books would say I’d turn my child into an ax murderer, but still on I rattled.
“Poor ole me, inside a drawer, waiting for you; you throwing me in the dirty clothes hamster; mommie throwing me in the washer – then the dryer. You going to the park, to the pet store, to MacDonalds – POOR ME!”
“I’m sorry Pinkie. You can come too, tomorrow. I promise.”
Oops! I decided to cut it for now. Then hoping she’d forget Pinky I decided to try the ole distraction technique again: “How about a Tootsie Roll?” (This time in my Mommie voice.)
“And one for poor Pinkie too,” she replied.
Oops! Well, surely by the morning her little two-year old memory will forget Pinkie’s miseries.
MORNING
Wrong again! First we battled over taking Pinkie off. She won. Then we battled over putting warm clothes over Pinkie. I won. Then I wrestled with “Do I really HAVE to go to the grocery store?” Hunger won. Perhaps it was only my imagination but as we prepared to parade out the door, I felt my stack of parenting books projecting an “I told you so” type glance my way.
At the store the other mom-looking types just seemed to nod knowingly at her get-up. Pinkie’s ribbons and lace were sticking out at every sleeve-hole, arm-hole, neck-hole and waist-place.
The men tsk-tsked or seemed to. But the grandmother-looking types were the worse with their “poor little girl” type looks. “They just don’t remember,” I told myself. But by the time we reached the fourth aisle I just started repeating something that they already knew but, after all, confession is good for (if not humiliating to) the soul. I just stared at their stares and stated, “It’s all my fault…it’s all my fault…it’s all my fault.”
Home again, home again, jig-a-de-jog. (All true mommies talk that way, think that way, so why not write that way?) Armed with a fresh batallion of Tootsie Rolls, I tackled the job of removing Pinkie. As predicted, her greed for tooth decay triumped over her devotion to Pinkie.
I washed the thing, dried the thing, all during Seseme Street.
“Mommie, can I help fold clothes?”
“Sure,” I smile, trying to hide Pinkie under towels.
“Where do Daddy’s panties go?”
“In his panty drawer.”
“Ok.” She marches out. Now’s my chance to stick Pinkie in the drawer.
Back in she pops with, “The light isn’t turned on…NO! Pinkie hates his drawer! Give him back!” She lunges toward me.
“Pinkie’s tired; he needs a nap,” I say trying to appeal to her mothering instinct.
“Pinkie hates naps, like me,” she retorts, holding the gown between her teeth and turning red.
Maybe next time the urge to “become the part” will be dampened somewhat. It’s true, the life of the theatre IS rough.
But that’s another story.