Sometimes the Hardest Part is Closing the Door

Sally has become unaffectionately known as The Insomniac. She’s never been a bad sleeper exactly, just a delicate one. As a baby, she didn’t sleep in the car or the stroller. She needed the right blankets in bed. But these days it seems worse: the temperature must be just so, the dream catcher must be mystically turned on. If she sleeps for 20 minutes and wakes, she’s done. Even if that’s at 9:00 at night and you are so tired you flirt with the idea of giving her booze to knock her out.

But at age 4, this delicate sensibility mostly manifests itself in her having trouble falling asleep. Many a night have I lay on her pergo bedroom floor, bruising my hips and trying to catch a cat nap as she browses the entire collection of Disney Fairy novels until she’s tired enough to sleep. She hates being alone when she can’t sleep. And she’s fidgety. She might have restless leg syndrome. I come up with a lot of theories when I’m stuck in her room as she tosses and turns. But eventually, she DOES fall asleep. And then I have to get out. Without. Disturbing. A Single. Solitary. Molecule.

Since I now have spent as much time escaping the clutch of my child as doctors spend in medical school, I have developed some expertise. Here are my tips for How to Exit A Child’s Room Without Waking Her:

* Get to the floor: Hopefully you started on the floor. Because if you are in her bed, you must first disentangle. If this is the case, make your breathing very shallow and lift your head and any limbs that are free so that as much mattress as possible is absent of your weight. You are now basically levitating as much as humanly possible without involving a ouija board. Stay like that until she moves some part of her body. (This could be difficult since your ab muscles likely came out with your placenta a few years ago.) When she shifts, you slither off the bed. Try not to make noise as you hit the floor.
**If she wakes: Tell her you were just getting a pillow and try to assume a position that makes it impossible for her to put you in a headlock, because if she does that, you’re spending the night with sour milk breath in your face.

* Freeze: Once you’ve gotten off the bed, stay exactly where you are for at least 30 seconds to allow any disruption you have caused to pass and her breathing to even out again. Slowly stand. Hopefully you’ve spent some time with your body and know which joints crack. If you are me and sound like a freaking microwave bag of Orville Redenbacher, just try to time movements with creaks in the house or the heater clicking on. Be prepared to freeze in place at any moment as you approach the door. Step toe-to-heel, à la cartoon bank robber.
**If she wakes: You were getting a blanket. Return to floor.

*Open the door: SLOWLY. Do not let any animals run in, or you’ll end up mouthing curse words at them while they stare blankly at you from across the room, and that’s a bit depressing.
**If she wakes: The kitties wanted to say goodnight. Return to floor and next time crawl out so you can catch wildlife.

All that stands between you and the sweet freedom of eating leftover brownies on the couch.

*Close the door: This is often the most difficult task — children have a strange sixth sense that alerts them to your aura moving outside of a protective radius. Damned kids. Turn the door handle completely, until it reaches it’s stopped position. Brace you other hand on the door jam, as it helps to pretend you have control over a load-bearing wall. Moving silently and without producing any breeze, close the door while continuing to hold knob in its turned position. As door meets jam, grimace like an Olympic weight lifter. Hold breath. Pull  door firmly closed and hold in pulled position while slowly releasing the knob. Failure to do this will result in the latch clicking, which will sound like a freaking bomb explosion after all this silence and result in your spouse whispering “AMATEUR!” at you with disgust on his face.
*If she wakes: You’re screwed. She knows you were sneaking out. Go brush your  teeth and do the walk of shame back to her room, where you will spend the night.

Letters From a Sandal

In the spring of 2010, unspeakable tragedy occurred in a young girl’s wardrobe. Suddenly overtaken by a heartless dictator, dozens of pants, shirts and socks were cast aside, sent to slow, agonizing deaths in the closet and dresser. Separated by a vast pink area rug, members of the two groups coped with their impeding doom in various ways. Saltwater Sandal, leader of the closet along with her ailing sister, wrote of her fears in letters to her lost love, Tennis Shoe, before she perished. The notes, later found by historians, are among the few pieces of evidence from victims of the now-infamous Massacre of Sally’s Wardrobe.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Closet: Day Four

My Dearest Tennie,

If you are reading this, I fear I must be out of season. Though it seems like an eternity that we have been trapped here, I know from the crack of light in the door that only days have passed. It has been four days since the Fairy Dress came and we were forced out of regular rotation. Four days since the skirts and dresses have felt skin, and since I have walked on fresh earth. I do not know how much longer we can hold out. We received news that Gold Ballet Slippers have joined Fairy Dress, since they were determined to be “fairy shoes.” It saddens me to know my respected pair of mentors have turned, but I suppose we each do what we must to survive in these trying times.

I’m sorry to tell you that my sister is not handling our situation well. I am left to manage the closet without her help; some call it a cruel joke of life that even should we survive, she may never be “right” again. We hear stories that the Mother is coming, that she has pulled survivors from the dresser–mostly underwear and socks, but also leggings and a sweater. They are only rumors, but they keep us hopeful. Today Tutu Skirt said she could hear the mother tell the girl she must wear fresh clothes to daycare so that Fairy Dress could at least be Febrezed . . . and she said the girl was to wear blue tennis shoes. I know that Tutu cannot be fully trusted—hallucinations have set in for many of the elders—but I pray, my dearest, that she is correct. I wish with all my sole that you be spared this miserable fate. And if not, Tennie, then may we meet soon in the next life, blended together into a state-of-the-art recycled tennis court.

Keep your laces strong, mon Soulier.

Yours ever,
Saltwater

Too Hot to Handle

It’s hot. Sally has been half naked all day. It’s almost never hot here. Nobody even has air conditioning — downright third world, if you ask me, even if we would only need it one week out of the year, the week we each wear our one pair of shorts till they are grungy molds of our rears.

A bad thing about heat is that it makes you avoid human contact. When you’re just you, that’s okay. When you have a 30-pound, walking, talking growth who wants you to hold not only her but her heat-trapping devil blanket, you start getting cranky. The only way to avoid becoming the Incredible Hulk’s less nice cousin is to keep everyone busy. You’d rather lie on the floor and let the flies buzz around you, of course, but moving around is better than having another sweaty body touch yours. Also, it helps prevent the worst thing about the heat: Flaring tempers.

Unfortunately, for us it’s too late. Sally is sick, I’m hungry and we’re having a showdown. All we’re missing is a tumbleweed.

“You pick it up.”
“No, Sally, you dropped it and you’re closest to it. You pick it up.”
“You do it.”
“No, you do it.”

I should point out here that she is 2, I’m 31 and we’re talking about a teensy play swing that goes with her Calico Critters house. Not my finest parenting moment. Still, neither of us budges. Two pair of blue eyes pierce each other while tiny, country-clad toy cats lay on the table, ready to melt into the paint.

Her eyes narrow. “Mommy, are you feeling . . . angry?”
“No.” Yes. But this is a stupid argument and I will win stupid arguments. “It’s simply your job to pick it up.”

She puts her hand on her revolver. I spit out chewing tabacco. Fragile onlookers avert their eyes. So this is how it ends.

“Can I have lemonade?”
“. . . Sure.”

My only saving grace in this heat is that her attention span is shorter than mine. But don’t think she’s forgotten the battle: Five hours later the swing is still on the floor and we’ve had the exact same argument two more times. Each ended with a refreshment. It’s supposed to cool down late this week. Maybe then she’ll pick up the toy.

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