by Patti
From the moment I come home from work, S is glued to my hip all the way up until bedtime. There is the after-schook snack chat, homework, dinner, couch cuddles, next-day preparation chores.... M works weeknights, and, since S is an "only", she has no siblings to keep her busy. This means it's all Me-n-the-Kid all the time, and by the time 9 pm rolls around I am des. per. ate. for her to Go! To! Sleep! Already! By this point I have been pleasing people pretty much all day long, and I am ready to plop on the couch, cover myself up with my zebra blanket, stick a warm laptop on my lap, and mindlessly browse the 'net while my little Anderson Cooper talks wittily to me from the flickering TV. Yes, I love multi-tasking my loafing, and WHY NOT; I multi-task everything else,
Although I eagerly look forward to bedtime, I also kind of have a love-hate relationship with it because bedtime means that we have to do the "routine". S is a creature of habit. She needs these routines to feel safe and satisfied, and given her history of bedtime blues, I indulge her need for these little routines because I'd rather spend 10 minutes getting her to sleep then 10 hours NOT sleeping. However, at the end of the day, after a veritable cornucopia of routines, I just feel so DONE with routines that I admit I grow impatient with having to do yet another one. But we do it anyway. It starts with my telling her no less than 9 times to brush her teeth and get her pajamas on. Once she is finally in bed, I check her alarm clock and set her radio to soft music on a 20 minute sleep timer, then we do the Advent calendar, we read a story, I re-fill her water glass and hand it to her so she can take a sip, and then, once the lights are out, I sit with her for 2 minutes. That's it: just 2 minutes. And as long as I do all of these things in the right order, I can safely leave the room.
And the moment I settle myself onto the couch, my blanket perfectly tucked around my body, the laptop fired up, Anderson on, it happens.
"Mommy!" S, calling me from bed.
Me, from couch: "What?"
S, from bed: "Can I pee?"
I have told S thousands of times that she doesn't need to ask me permission to pee; that she is welcome to GET UP AND GO TO THE BATHROOM. But she asks me every. single. time. I have figured out that it is not really her asking my permission, or even having to pee, really; it is more her way of maintaining that connection with me so she doesn't have to go to sleep. So, even though I know she doesn't have to pee at all, I tell her to go pee and get back in bed. I hear her shuffle to the bathroom, flush the toilet for effect, and shuffle back to bed, all as sloooooooooooowly as possible.
"Mommy!" S, back in bed, after her faux pee.
Me, from couch: "WHAT?"
"Uh... Good night!"
"Good night."
Silence. Then...
"Mommy!" There she goes again.
At this point I am VERY annoyed and feeling kind of stabby. "WHHAAAAT?"
S, tiny-voiced: "I love you."
Me, knowing I am being totally manipulated but falling for it anyway. "Love you, too, bean."
Then she goes quiet, and I giddily snuggle down into my blanket for some couch time.
"Mommy?" S, from bed AGAIN.
Me: "Oh, honey, WHAT?????"
S: "The radio turned off. I can't sleep without it."
Me: "GO TO SLEEP!"
S: "But I can't sleep without it!"
"Mommy?"
I see her, laying there, her eyes blinking in the glow of the nightlight.
"What?"
"Thank you."
That is when I go to her bed, my marionette strings tangled, and I stroke her face; the face that will one day turn away from me, the face that will one day hold secrets, the face that will no longer call for me in the night. And I kiss that face.
And then I go back to the couch and sit in the quiet that has finally come.
