The Story of Mao

If you have read a few of my stories here, you have noticed that I often refer to my daughter as “Mao.” She was dubbed “Mao Tse Hannah” a couple of years ago, when she was around one and a half. She had become quite a talker. Her two older brothers adored her, and she knew it. She took that unfaltering devotion to her and seized its power. Hannah, on a whim, would get right up in the boys’ faces, jabbing her finger toward them, shouting out decrees in her toddlerese with such ardent resolve that she looked and sounded like some kind of angry Chinese dictator.

Now, you would think that after more than a year’s practice at speech she would lose that title. But she has retained the name Mao not because she sounds like him anymore, but because she is able to strike fear into our hearts that we will fall into disfavor with her. At any given moment, over the smallest of things.

If she does something as ordinary as asking for a cup of “milky” (oh, sure, she lulls you into a false sense of security by calling it by a cutesy name), Jeff and I nervously look at each other, determining who will bring it to her. Sometimes she makes it easy on us by addressing us directly with her request. But this – we’re flying blind. I take the milk to her, and it is as I feared. “NOOOOO!!!! I want Daddy to bring it!!!!” She will not accept that milk from me under any circumstances. I take the cup back to Daddy.

Or I bring her the milk, but I don’t deliver it in the proper fashion. I hand it to her, she wants it on the table. I put it on the table, she wants it on the floor. I put it on the floor, she wants Daddy to bring it. Dance, Monkey, dance!

The dreaded potty experience. “I’M FINISHED!” Who goes? Who does she want? Oh, God, the suspense! Toilet paper or baby wipe? Do I see her or not see her? Do I stay to help with redressing, or does she want “a privacy?” Stay by the door but not see her? Go away? JUST TELL ME!!!

Most fathers worry about when the day comes their daughter will date. Jeff doesn’t worry. He reassured me, “If somebody picked her up, I guarantee you he’d have her back in fifteen minutes with his deepest sympathies.”

Please don’t misunderstand – we try to do all the right things, ignoring tantrums, not rewarding bad behavior, praising good behavior… but we are, after all, restaurant people with a restaurant mentality. She simply wants things the way she wants them. And she tips very well.