Papaya Mom

As Papaya’s mother I feel this urgency to get things right. I know it’s the rabid perfectionist eating her way out of the prison known as my brain, but still, I feel this. Papaya is too good, to fresh, to pure to be messed up by my often imperfect, lazy, self-absorbed ways.

This morning I awoke and fed Papaya yogurt, or at least put it in a bowl for her. She adores feeding herself (talent with a spoon, a sign of future achievements) then finger painting with that which she is not inclined to ingest. I totally get that, no problemo here. Only this morning she wanted to do this while “watch!”ing, yep, my kid asks for TV. I now accept my award as biggest hippie fuck up who has now addicted her child to PBS Sprout as a way to achieve a moderatly clean house and eat yummy things. But is this who I want to be? I’m TORN!

The woman I was the day before I gave birth to her; full of hopes, dreams, ideals, research, lists - she don’t live here anymore. I still do many of these things but they are not all important, rather I turn to look at her sweet face and see how she likes it. My gut is my strongest predicter and I trust it, and her. Only today while attempting to wrestle with her she pointed at the TV again, gasp, and said “watch.”

But the shows are good, she’s learned words and it’s not like I’m letting her watch Jerry Springer, right? I always judged my friends who said that about their kids.

Oh how I wish I could convince Adventure Dad to make this a no TV house, take them away! The temptation is to great for me in my lazy gut and my daughter in her wish to watch animals all day long. I made myself feel better, and gave her a fun time in the process by going to the Reston Zoo. See, I am a good parent, right?

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