Mommy's Pen

A writer's notes on family

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It’s a Way

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I’ve put down my book and switched off the lamp.  I’m sinking into the mattress when I hear, “Mommy! Mommy!”

I patter down the hall and crack open her door.

“What’s up?”

“I need you to snuggle me for just a minute and I promise I’ll let you go.”

I lay down beside her and she wraps her arms around my neck.

“You know,” I tell her, “I still love you the same amount, even though I want to sleep in my own bed.  I love you all the way to the moon and back and forth and back and forth forever.”

“I love you more than you love me.”

“That’s not even possible,” I tell her. “I love you a million, billion, trillion, gazillion times.”

“Well, I love you a billion times,” she says emphatically.  “But, you know, it’s not really a number, it’s a way.”

“You’re so right.”

She hugs me again.

“Do you feel warmth?  Do you feel the love, Mommy?”

Yes.  Yes, I do.

Timeline of Last Evening

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7:00pm Storytime begins.  Nora lays playing with a small flashlight while I read the Flopsy Bunnies.

7:05pm Nora claims she is tired and wants me to stop reading.  I turn out the light and we lay in bed while she plays with the flashlight and is repeatedly warned against kicking her sick daddy.

7:25pm Nora asks to move to her bedroom.  We stop to go potty.  I begin to hiccup.

7:30pm Nora and I lay in her bed.  She mimics my every hiccup.  I use hiccups as an excuse to leave her bed.

7:35pm I decide cereal is the perfect hiccup cure and eat a very small bowl. Hiccups are still heard from Nora’s bedroom.

8:00pm I am in bed reading tweets and all is quiet from Nora’s room.  I can hardly believe my good fortune that she is asleep by eight.

8:02pm Nora bellers from her bedroom, “Mommy or Daddy!”

8:03pm Nora is wide awake and demanding a snuggle.  I lay with her for a few minutes, then make an excuse that Hoover needs to be let outside.

8:15pm Nora bellers down the hall again.  I walk halfway down the hall and use my sternest voice to call, “Nora, go to sleep.”  To my amazement, this works.

8:30pm I’m pretty sure this is when I fell asleep.

10:30pm Hoover wakes me up to let him outside.

1:30am Nora calls out from her bedroom.  I drag myself to her bed.  She winds herself around me and seems to fall back to sleep.

1:32am Nora sleep talks, “Mommy, all the bears died.”

“Go to sleep,” I whisper.

“Mommy, all the bears died.”

“How?”

“They just died, so don’t worry about it.”

 1:35 I drift off to sleep, wondering what happened to the bears.

Oh My Darlin’ (at Bedtime)

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Nora bellers from her bedroom.  I just tucked her in for the night.  Ben walks down the hallway to check on her.  She says she has to go potty and she wants me to take her. 

“Mom’s asleep,” says Ben.

“No, she’s not,” Nora responds in a lilt.

“You’re a big kid now.  If you need to go potty, you can go by yourself.” Then, somehow, he leaves the room without igniting a a toddler firestorm.

A moment later, we hear sounds from the bathroom. Ben gets up to check on her; if she pooped, she needs help wiping.  Nora is already back in her room. He sticks his head in.

“I went potty and I wiped.”

“Did you go pee or poop?”

“I just peed,” she pauses, “I’m going to sing that song you like: 

‘In a cavern,

In a canyon,

Excavating for a mine.

You were lost a and gone forever

Dreadful sorry, Clementine.'”

Bargaining

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DRAMATIS PERSONAE

BEN The father

NORA The toddler

SCENE   Nora’s bedroom.  Dusk.

BEN   Nora, I’m going to give you two choices, you can lay back and close your eyes and try to go to sleep and I’ll send mom in to check on you in ten minutes or you can be noisy and I won’t bother having mom check on you.  Which would you like?

NORA   [Holding index finger to her lips.]  Mmmmmmmm.  Mmmmmm.  Mmmmm. Mmmmmm.  Mmmmmm.  Mmmmmm.  Mmmmmmmm.  Mmmmmm.  Mmm.

BEN    Nora, which do you want?

NORA    Mmmmmm.  I need a minute to think about it.  Mmmmm.  Mmmmmmmm.  Mmmm.  Mmmmmm.  Mmmmmmmmm.  I want mommy in five minutes.

[Fade out]

Bedtime, Johnny Cash Style

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Bedtime, you’ve been living hell to me.
You’ve busted me ever since this child turned three.
I’ve seen her stall and I’ve seen her cry.
Every night I keep asking why.

Bedtime, I hate every minute of you.
You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me through and through
And I’ll walk out a wiser, weaker woman;
Little Miss Toddler, you can’t understand.

Bedtime, there is so much good you could do
Do you think she’ll be sleeping when we’re through?
You bend my heart and mind and you warp my soul,
her desperate pleas turn my blood a little cold.

Bedtime, may you rot and burn in hell.
May this child sleep and may I live to tell.
May all the screaming not reach the neighborhood.
And may all my reasoning one day do some good.

Bedtime, I hate every minute of you.

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