Godmother

About three years ago, a close friend of mine asked if I’d like to be godmother to her soon-to-be-born daughter. I said yes, of course. How could I turn down such a thing? But I have to admit that I had doubts about my abilities to fill the role.

I’ve never been very good with kids. I don’t dislike children. I enjoy a cute baby, a hand-drawn picture, or a tiny dance recital as much as the next person. But I’ve just never been very good at interacting with kids. They’re mysterious to me. Some people are good at engaging kids in conversation. I am not one of them. In my 10ish years of adult existence, I had never been important in the life of a child. Even when I tried to be, I just never rose to that role.

Ergo, the idea of being godmother to a child was intimidating. As soon as my friend's daughter was born (I’ll just call her K), my mission was clear. I would get K to like me. I had never known how to relate to kids, but it was time to learn.

My first strategy attempted to play to one of my strengths: making cool stuff. Each Christmas and birthday, I have given K a handmade gift: a blanket, personalized mittens, colorful stuffed birds (one of her favorite animals, at the time), a hand-decorated step stool.  They all use the same color scheme, on the theory that even if she didn’t associate the gifts with me as she received them, someday she would realize that all the awesome purple-teal-white-pink stuff came from Auntie Katie.

Thus far, K has not made that realization. (A shocker, I know, considering that she’s not quite 3.) I have not given up on this strategy, but it’s a long-game strategy. I needed a short-game strategy.

What other aspects of me or my life would be appealing to K? “I want to be the first person to take her to the Shedd,” I told K’s mother. “And don’t go introducing her to Harry Potter. I want dibs on Harry Potter.” K’s mom promised. “Don’t worry,” she said. “There will be no Harry Pottering at our house.”

The Shedd and Harry Potter might be two great things for K and I to share. But she’s still too young for both of them. I am waiting patiently. But it quickly became clear that waiting wasn’t going to address the short game.

Admitting temporary defeat, I gave myself a few pep talks and began taking what is probably the obvious approach to the rest of you: I started spending more time with K. I’ve been careful to pay attention to her, attempting to engage her as often as I could.

The results have been a mixed bag. I’ve had a few successes. K seemed to rather enjoy when I taught her how to say, “Achoo!” as a fake sneeze. We also played a rousing game of peek-a-boo once, which involved a lot of high pitched half-scream, half-laughs from K.

(It occurs to me, suddenly, that both of these episodes when she was particularly responsive to me happened in the car, when she was buckled in her car seat. It seems that I’m an acceptable form of entertainment, but only when her options are limited. That’s mildly discouraging.)

(Eh, you know what? I’ll take it.)

There have been a few ongoing markers of progress, too. K knows my name and recognizes me, my photo, and my apartment building. She no longer cries when I get in the car. She used to do that consistently.

However, I still feel it’d be generous to say that K likes me. She tolerates my presence now, but still mostly refuses to sit next to me, hold my hand, or otherwise directly interact. I’m learning that building a relationship with a kid, particularly one that I don’t see more often than once or twice a month, is a long and humbling process. I’m counting on persistence to pay off.

I will say something positive for spending time with K, though. It may not be helping her warm up to me as fast as I would like, but it has given me a much greater appreciation of her. Kids have always been a mysterious and frightening class of beings for me, and K fell into that category for quite some time. But paying closer attention to the things K says has changed my perception of her.

Here’s a good example: Over the summer, K and I and her family were out at a city park. K was riding on her mother’s back and naming the things she saw. “Doggie,” she’d say, and point to someone walking a dog. “That’s right!” we’d say. “What else to do you see?” She saw trees, people, and even a helicopter. (It was really quite impressive that she identified that last one!)

Later on that evening we were in a restaurant, and I hear K say, “robot.” I thought she was still playing the “I see” game, so I looked around for a poster or something that showed a robot. I didn’t find one. “Where do you see a robot, K?” I asked. She looked around and then said, almost as if to herself, “I don’t see a robot.”

It’s not clear what was going on in her head at the time. Perhaps she wasn’t playing the “I see” game and simply said “robot” because she was thinking about something else. Maybe she saw something that looks somewhat like the round, automatic vacuum in her house, thought it was a robot, and subsequently decided it wasn’t. I’m not sure. Either way, she heard me and tried to reconcile my question with whatever she was thinking. “I don’t see a robot.” It was a thoughtful conclusion.

It’s things like this that help me understand that K’s not so frightening. She’s just a little tiny person who is trying to figure things out. I think she’s doing a pretty good job. It gives me faith that eventually, she’ll also figure out that Auntie Katie made her all that cool stuff, takes her to do fun things, and generally just wants to be her friend.