“Can you put her on the cover?” Mickie Wood asks me as we finish our conversation about her 6-year-old daughter, Eden Wood, who makes her fifth overall appearance (and third as “a feature”) on Wednesday’s Season 4 premiere of Toddlers & Tiaras (TLC, 10/9c). When Wood realizes this interview is for a website not a magazine, she’s much less pushy than you might expect for someone who fits the profile of “stage mom.” She has “somewhat of a smattering” of a pageant history herself and started orchestrating Eden’s pageant career when her daughter was just over a year old.
Wood is just as much of a character on the phone as her daughter has to be onstage. She starts the conversation singing Tony Basil’s “Mickey” (in reference to her own name), describes her daughter as kicking some “bootay” onstage, exhibits the savvy of a reality-TV vet and expresses befuddlement over Leah Remini describing her daughter as “luscious” after she performed her must-be-heard-to-be-believed song “Cutie Patootie” on The Talk last year.