I remember trips with my mom to Baskin-Robbins as a kid. She would take my sisters and me after ballet class on sunny afternoons. I remember peering over the glass counters, looking down at the tubs of creamy frozen goodness. I can’t recall the names of the flavors, but the colors remain vivid thirty years later: pink, light blue, mint green, and neon orange, a work of art for my eyes designed in the colors of Easter, arranged like a box of pastel-colored chalk, illuminated by fluorescent lights above and natural light from the storefront windows. Mom stood behind us, waiting in our shadows.
I’ve considered what kind of sweet treat my mom would enjoy now at age 73 for birthdays and special holidays, and I can’t remember what flavor she would order or if she’d order anything at Baskin-Robbins, and it makes me sad. Was she the designated holder of ballet shoes, tutus, napkins, and spoons? Was I a kid dancing among the sugar plums, unaware my mother had a favorite ice cream flavor she didn’t order because her hands were full of my things? Yes, I’m sure. As a forty-something mom now, I hate that I can’t remember and was so unaware. She probably skipped Jazzercise to take me to ballet —yet another sacrifice.
And it’s through mom’s habits of putting her kids’ wishes before her own I unknowingly learned to take note of my kids’ ice cream orders and quietly salivate.
My daughter likes extra-sweet flavors like birthday cake or cotton candy with rainbow sprinkles. My son is lotal to classic mint chocolate chip. And my husband opts for flavors like salted caramel and butter pecan, those indulgent yet sophisticated flavors that combine salty, buttery, and sweet notes, topped with Reese’s or Snickers, if they are available.
Nonetheless, I do not have a go-to flavor; I usually skip my ice cream order altogether. During our family ice cream outings, I’m the bag holder, the table holder, the napkin holder, the helmet holder if we’ve biked or taken scooters, and the holder of all things: slime, a fidget toy, a book, or worse, an iPad. I’m an easy target for the job, carrying a bag filled with an assortment of things: snot-covered tissues, used Wet Ones, unclaimed Chapstick, sunglasses, and those little hand sanitizer bottles that leak.
Or, sometimes, I don’t order anything because I already eat plenty of ice cream. As mom, I am tasked with licking the melty cream when it’s dripping from someone’s cup or cone, when someone’s belly hurts from overeating, or when someone suffers a dreaded brain freeze. So, I get plenty of the delicacy, but it is just not customized for me. Ironically, everyone else’s favorite ice cream melts off everything quickly except my hips, wider since birthing two babies more than a decade ago and wider more since perimenopause.
But mom sacrificing her own ice cream so the kids can enjoy theirs feels like a family tradition. It’s a small and silly sacrifice, but indicative of the larger role of a mom who’d stand in her kids’ shadows for their joy.
Our ice cream outings are a microcosm of mothers in my family who put their children first. Mom is always the last one to bed to ensure tomorrow’s lunchboxes are prepared, homework is complete, spelling test words are reviewed, and backpacks are organized. The kids have clean clothes laid out and ready for the next day; mom’s clothes are laid out too, but only because she’s wearing the same ones that she wore the day before.
But now that my own kids are 13 and 11, old enough to hold their own crap, it’s time for new family traditions. On a family outing late last summer, we passed an ice cream shop with a line of customers twisting out the door. Even from the outside, the place smelled sweet, like a freshly made waffle cone dipped in chocolate coated with marshmallows—a smell so delectable that my mind swirled with possibilities. The sugary aroma was irresistible.
I ordered a banana split, the queen of all ice cream orders.
My teen daughter with sun-kissed cheeks and streaks of blond in her hair from spending too much time in the summer sun, nearly fainted from embarrassment as I reached over the counter for my oversized order, a plastic tub filled with three scoops of ice cream, strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla, flanked by a banana split lengthwise, covered with fresh strawberries and fudge, whipped cream, walnuts, and several cherries on top. The dish was a sugary feast big enough to feed an entire family, yet an order I finally called my own.
“Did you really order a banana split?” she asked with attitude. Uncomfortable with my large order, she rolled her eyes and took a few steps back, her flip flops clicking.
“I did. And it’s delicious.” I licked whipped cream off the top and scooped up a cherry with my tongue, dotting my nose with a white dollop, heightening her mortification.
“That thing is huge!” my son said, sharing his sister’s embarrassment. His cheeks were more than sun-kissed, sunburnt, making his blue eyes appear a little brighter and wider than usual.
I devoured most of my banana split before my belly felt full. I offered my husband a bite or two, sitting with a backward cap and a smirk on his face, but he let me revel in my sugary paradise. As the warm sun draped my brown bare shoulders, I felt satisfied that I had sufficiently embarrassed my kids with my order, distracting them from their own little worlds and into mine for just a few moments. I hoped they would remember that day as we experienced concurrent delight. I thought of all the forgone ice cream orders in years past—my mom’s and mine.
Like my mother, despite our actions, I am not just the lady who holds things and cleans up melting messes to enable kids’ joy. I, too, have favorite things and sugary desires. I feel awful that I cannot name my mom’s favorite sweet treat, especially as we both age —she needs a knee replacement, and I need a better skin care routine — but maybe my kids will remember mine. It really is the full banana split with all the toppings, not just a single flavor, an order I call my own.
Vanessa Garza is a former consultant turned writer after surviving four brain surgeries in 2017, resulting in epilepsy and moderate deafness. Her work has appeared in Motherwell, Intima, Hobart, and Notre Dame Magazine. A graduate of GrubStreet’s 2021 Essay Incubator, she lives in Boston with her family.