There are nights that sleep descends on me
like a blanket coming down
and I stay in sleep so easily,
disturbed by not a sound.
But then there are the nights
with incidents my earplugs cannot mute
potty breaks and whining,
bed territory disputes.
Driftin’, dreamin’, dozin’,
snoozin’, snorin’, nappin’
Sleep never seems so crucial
until it doesn’t happen.
There are, in the world, parents who probably consider us lucky that Z continued napping until she was nearly three.
I try to remember this when I’m tearing out my hair and sobbing on the phone to my mom.
“Quiet Time” sounds something like this. (Please note: Curly brackets { } denote the ESM’s thoughts, those things she says inside her head that she will never say aloud. Well, no louder than a grumble.)
Ever-Suffering Mother: Okay, Z, you’ve had something to drink, you’ve used the potty, you had stories and songs. Now it’s Quiet Play Time and I’ll set the timer for an hour. You get to play in your room now. Loveyoubye. {Maybe I should try setting the timer for an hour and a half? Would she know? No, but I would know, and I’ve inherited just enough of my mother’s Catholic guilt….}
Z: Okay, Mommy.
pause.
Z: Mommy, I want to take a nap. Turn on my noise machine. Please.
ESM: [rolls eyes when Z turns around] Yeah, sure. A nap. Okay, I’m turning your noise machine on.
Z: [climbs in bed] I need blankets.
ESM: [gives her the frickin’ blankets]
Z: I need my friends.
ESM: Okay, I’m getting you two friends. Which ones do you want?
Z: Talula and Ladybug Girl Baby.
ESM: [searching entire house for Talula and Ladybug Girl Baby] You know what? After this I’m not getting you anything else. It’s Quiet Play Time {dammit}.
Approximately three minutes and twenty-eight seconds go by.
Z: Mamamamadaddydaddy!
ESM: {yeah right.}
Z: Mamamamadaddydaddy! I need blankets!
ESM: I gave you blankets.
Z: [using distressed, I-mean-business-you-better-give-me-what-I-want-or-you-will-never-get-a-second’s-peace voice] I need blaaaaankets!
ESM: [using I’m-giving-in-this-one-time-and-if-you-ask-me-for-one-more-stupid-thing-I-will-explode voice] Fine! Here are your blankets. Now it’s QUIET TIME SO BE QUIET!!!
I’ve given up trying to write in the afternoons.
41 days until preschool starts.
Recently I started following the YA Muses blog, after I met Katy Longshore at a local get-together. The prompt is this: “At a used book sale, you purchase a leather-bound volume. At home, you thumb through the pages and an old letter tumbles out. What does it say? Write the letter.”
Here’s my response to the prompt.
*
I knew you would find this letter if I hid it here, among the books you call friends. You can’t look at a book without picking it up, thumbing through it, getting pulled into story.
You call these books “friends” and I imagine your surprise when one of them betrays you with this note.
Because the stories are the problem. A woman obsessed, you cannot stop. You paused briefly to give birth, but before your daughter was even weaned, already the pen, the paper, and the book were there, open before you while she slept at your breast.
No one needs to tell you these years are fleeting. You watch them scream past, measuring them in unsellable manuscripts, pausing to breathe and scream back only if something, or some little person, dares to disrupt your solitude, silence, sanctuary.
The guilt of the time you take for your failings is heavy indeed. No wonder you take photographs, evidence of what time you do spend with her, hoping that those frozen memories will be enough to convince her, when she’s older, that everything you did, you did for her. That it was always about her, never you.
Let me tell you a secret: the dedication at the beginning of your manuscript – published, unpublished – will never be a substitute for you.
Put down the pen, and play with your daughter.
I’m sure I’m really missing everyone during this week of internet (nearly) blackout. If you’re really missing me, too, feel free to visit this old post, Grace:
The No-Nap Blues: I’m singin’ ’em.
Yesterday, I, the Ever-Suffering Mother, sat through an hour of listening to my child whine in the next room. “I don’t want to sleep. Let me up. Let me up!” (As if I were physically holding her down on the bed. However, if she’s going to continue believing herself stuck in bed, I’m not gonna enlighten her.)
Later in the afternoon, I spoke with one of the members of my Maternal Support Team (a.k.a. “Mom”).
Ever-Suffering Mother: Why didn’t she go to sleep? I think I don’t like her at all.
Maternal Support Team: (makes indistinct noises without committing the blasphemy of speaking against her granddaughter)
ESM: (wails) I just wish I knew what I did wrong!
MST: (finally kicking into supportive mode) You didn’t do a single thing wrong. Sometimes these things just happen.
ESM: No. Something went wrong. I did something different, and I will figure out what it was so it never happens again. (shakes fist at the other room where Z happily plays with her stuffed animal friends)
MST: Really, sometimes these things just happen, and you can’t control them–
ESM: Can so. I know I turned around three times in the kitchen before her naptime. That might have influenced it. Or her sound machine…maybe the volume got adjusted up or down after we brought it back from your house. Or I sang the second verse of her second lullaby in the wrong key. I will figure it out!
MST: (laughs)
By the time my Spousal Support Team (a.k.a. “Husband”) returned home from work, I was a total wreck. Still in my sweatpants, hair tied back in a nasty black scarf (the color of mourning), wondering if I’d ever have time to work on my manuscript again. Feeling a little sick from self-medicating with half a bag of Nestle Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate chips. (Oh wait, that’s every evening. Tears optional. Maybe change the color of the scarf.)
Really, though, what do stay-at-homies DO when their child stops taking naps? Do they have a second child to distract the first? Do they run away from home? What I’d like to do is institute a three-hour Solitude and Quiet Time. And, yeah, maybe run away for a couple of days.
Beth Hull 