Last week while we were up in Williamstown giving a talk, we had to line up some babysitting for the kids for the times when we would actually be talking to students (as generally amenable as our children are, they cannot be relied on when it comes to listening to us blather on about ourselves for 45 minutes). The college babysitting service stepped in and lined us up with two unsuspecting students.
One of the students happened to be running a psych study on mothers and toddlers, and asked if Kato and I would be willing subjects. Having been good friends with several psych majors through college (and beyond!) I have been the subject of many a psych study. I thought it might be fun to see the other side of the two-way mirror again, so signed us up.
I told Kato he would be “getting to play with some fun toys.” He pretty much fell for it. (Point: Mom. Kato: zero.)
I’m always skeptical about what a study is actually about, but the idea here was that Kato and I would play with some toys for a while and then for a certain amount of time I would ignore him. At another point, I would pretend to answer an “important phone call” and he’d have to fend for himself with the toys.
Well, problem number one started when we had to get hooked up to little portable EKG monitors.
Kato was like, “HELLS, no!” even when I tried to convince him that we were actually going to become robots. There was a lot of whining and fussing and stomping of feet, and some bribery on behalf of the psych department (stickers were given, and a cool orange recorder (the instrument) was promised, but no luck). (Point: Kato.) There were some irrational tears and a lot of stubborn “No, I don’t WANT”s, until I finally was like, “F* this nonsense!” and just put the damn things on him. (Point: Mom) Thankfully, he was pretty much immediately distracted by the giant pink plastic dollhouse they brought in. (Point: psych dept)
There was also, mysteriously, some saliva-collecting that went on. We had to suck on these little cigarette filter-looking thingies. That was a whole different series of pleas and bribes, but Kato eventually was convinced it was worth doing when I showed him how disgusting and squishy mine sounded in my mouth (and told him our spit was going to be used for rocket fuel). (Nobody gets points for that, it was grody)
Kato played fine with me and played fine while I ignored him, though I had a hard time not cracking up when at one point he looked at me (trying my hardest to ignore him) and said, “Mama! Why are you sleeping?!” (Mom: -1)
And then he was supposed to help me change a baby doll. I suspect this part of the experiment was to test how a child reacts to a parent paying attention to a baby, but I imagine results are skewed depending on whether the child has a younger sibling or not. Kato jumped right in, pretending the doll was Baby August.
He got the mechanics of things a little confused, using one of the baby’s bottles to wash it off before patting it down to put on its diaper. (Kato: -1)
Actually, it’s not a bad idea – August probably doesn’t get swabbed down nearly enough. (Mom: -1)
The diapers went on with no problem, though Kato wondered at the baby’s lack of gratitude. (Point: Baby)
“Welcome to the club, man,” I said. (Point: Mom)
Up next was some discussion of flash cards.
I’m afraid I didn’t have much wisdom to share about “peaceful,” so it ended up being a discussion of what kind of bed the dog was sleeping on. Was that a psych study fail? Who knows. I will forever wonder. (Mom: -1)
I then had to speak extemporaneously about Kato into a voice recorder for five minutes while he got to go in the other room and collect his stickers. Do you have any idea how hard it is to talk about anything for five minutes? I don’t think I could talk about the whole history of the world for five minutes. It felt like a very long time. I think at one point I even said that I admired him for being stubborn. WTF? I hope I can redact that when they publish the study. (Mom: -2)
After that ordeal, I went to get Kato, who was happily eating gummy snacks and stickering it up in the break room. (Point: Kato, point: Kato)
In retrospect, I can think of a number of moments when my maternal behavior might have been statistically sub-par. But if the outcome is okay, I don’t need to worry, right?
Kato made two new friends, was delighted to be the filler in the hot chick sandwich, and got a fab orange recorder to boot. (Point: Kato, point: Kato, point: Kato)
What kid could ask for more from an outing with his mom? (Point: Mom)
Final tally:
Mom: -1
Kato: 5
Baby: 1
Psych Dept: 1
(n.b.: the rest of the family was admittedly pretty pissed at the recorder acquisition so close to the 8-hour drive home. But what’s a good mom to do?) (Mom: -5)
