story-books and lullabies
hush, my baby, don’t you cry
all the pretty little horses–
lids fall, lashes long
soft breaths, gentle-strong.
up too early?
too darn bad, it’s back to sleep.
mommy needs
her sanity.
hold my breath, afraid to gulp
the second phase is harder earned
ten minutes on tip-toes
climbing moves, grasping doorframes
avoid the squeaks in the old-wood floors
ah, peace, safe downstairs
for another fifteen minutes.
Here is my list of ten classic works adapted for parents of small children.
1. Great Expectorations, in which young Estella, instead of being coached to break the hearts of men, is trained to spit up all over them.
2. “The Lullaby of J. Alfred Prufrock.” Highlights: “I have measured my life in baby food jars,” “I have heard my parents singing, each to each / No, you go pick her up / I am asleep,” and “In the room mommies come and go / hoping their nursing bras don’t show.”
3. The White Badge of Courage, in which heroic parents are lauded for the spit-up stains on their shirts.
4. War and Pacifiers, featuring a number of babies with misleading nicknames who battle and philosophize over a long stretch of snow-covered binkies.
5. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Nap.” The speaker, a toddler, advises a younger sibling to rage, rage against the efforts of the mom.
6. As I Lay Diapering, in which a mother attempts to sleep while changing a diaper in the middle of the night.
7. Blubbering Heights. Two parents moan and cry for each other across the expanse of their bed, held apart by the kicking arms and legs of their young child.
8. One Day in the Life of Mama Denisovich chronicles a day in the life of a stay-at-home mom tethered to her child in a setting eerily similar to that of a Siberian prison camp. No bon-bons or soap operas included.
9. The (Rude) Awakening. A frustrated mother sets out to leave her family, then realizes she will surely starve without her husband because she doesn’t know how to cook. Returns home.
10. Babywulf. A colicky infant terrorizes a medieval household.
This morning I was greeted in the kitchen by the Mt. Everest of dishes, looming precipitously above me and sucking up all the oxygen with their stench. Didn’t I JUST do these? I wondered. Hasn’t there been enough kitchen cleaning for one week? Does it never end? I know I’m not the first stay-at-homie to ponder these philosophical quandaries. With my easy solution, perhaps I’ll be the last.
For those of you interested in my ground-breaking solution, here it is: stop eating. No food means no dishes. I know I can certainly survive until the Fourth of July off of my stomach fat alone, not even needing to use up the fat stores from other parts until much later. Z can survive off the handouts she gets at playdates. Seriously, the kid walks into a stranger’s house and starts begging. I try to convince the other moms that she does eat at home, but they don’t believe me. So I may as well stop feeding her and make the rounds to the other toddlers’ houses. And Husband? He barely eats anyway, somehow getting through an entire day on three cookies. In fact, he doesn’t even have to eat those cookies. He takes them to work, then brings them home; he magically absorbs whatever calories he needs just from carrying them. I magically absorb whatever calories I don’t need just by looking at air.
But this isn’t an article intended to poke fun at my weight, as easy as that is right now. I’m mystified by the kitchen, and the dishes inside it, and how they seem to dirty themselves through the very virtue of being dishes. Perhaps I don’t get it because I don’t cook. So when I see the dishes it’s magical in an Oh-No-Voldemort-Just-Apparated-In-My-Kitchen sort of way.
When I do finally tackle the mess, usually in the morning (I mean really, who wants to waste Z’s precious bedtime hours cleaning?), I vow to never again let it get this bad. “Never,” I say, scrubbing a chunk of enchilada off the rim of a plate. All good intentions are lost as soon as Z looks “thoughtful” and needs a new diaper. My child protects me from doing too much work because after the diaper change she wants a story. And in the face of all those dishes, reading Rosemary Wells’s Bunny Planet trilogy forty-six times sounds like nirvana.
Mr. Penguin can do many things. He can wear your cloth diapers and your t-shirts and onesies. He can sit on your potty. He can lie down in the cradle while you rock him. He can say grace. He can sit in your high chair and eat the pretend food you spoon in the general direction of his beak. He can hold your hands and dance the Five o’clock Disco Dance Breakdown.
But Mr. Penguin cannot ride your bike. Try again and again, stomp your feet, ask Mama to “peas hep” (please help), throw Mr. Penguin to the floor. He will not do it. Not ever. Mr. Penguin cannot ride your bike for the same reason he cannot wear your pants.
Why not? Because Mr. Penguin has no legs. And short of a very risky and time-consuming surgery, there is nothing Mama can do to peas hep.
While we’re on the subject, Mr. Penguin will never take a bath with you. Why not? Because Mama says so.
Husband took Z to his parents’ house yesterday. This was my very first night sleeping in bed–by myself–in eighteen months. I know, weird. I love Husband, and I love Z, but I also love solitude, and that’s been so, so rare since Z was born. She’s fabulous, she’s so funny and outgoing. She’s also awake. A lot. Never stops moving. Blocks and books are the only things that can get her to sit still–that, and high-chair prison (her sentence while I shower in the mornings).
So while I miss her (and Husband too), I have absolutely loved my weekend of alone-time. I read, and wrote, and read some more. I watched “Saturday Night Fever,” which was a mistake except for the short part where Travolta actually dances well (in addition to my “don’t kill the dog/cat” rule of storytelling, I also believe rape scenes should be skipped over).
It’s sad and happy at the same time to imagine the thundering of little feet on the floors when she comes home.
Beth Hull 