The Raging Elitist

Some jobs beg to be properly completed. For instance, there’s a certain pleasure to the trancelike state you experience washing windows, but the real prize is stepping back and admiring the finished product, your mind as clear and renewed as the freshly cleaned glass. The last thing you want to hear when you’re basking in such a moment, having already stooped to put away the cleaning supplies and replaced the child lock on the cabinet under the sink is, “You missed a spot.” If you don’t get up from the couch, retrieve the Windex, and eradicate the blemish, it’s going to keep on pestering you – Missed me! – robbing you of your perfect relaxation. That’s what it’s like when Cartter calls me back to his room after bedtime.

Cartter is forever pointing out that we missed a spot after we’ve turned his light out and said goodnight. Last night he was hot – “You have to turn on the fan. I’m sweating.” The night before he was cold, and when I turned the light on, I saw that he had kicked all the blankets off himself. The water bottle on the desk is freaking him out. Please remove it. There’s a gap in the curtain and a slit of light is entering the room. The nightlight isn’t working. He’s thirsty. Nobody signed his VIP (very important papers) packet. Um, actually, Daddy, you missed a spot. Except that’s not how he says it. He has a much more piercing way of alerting you that your bedtime job remains undone.

You think you’ve finally corralled the Tasmanian Devil. You’ve suffered fierce opposition to showering, story time couch wrestling, and crazed running through the house just before lights out. Your efforts to encourage more independence have resulted in puddles on the bathroom floor, unflushed turds, and gobs of toothpaste smeared all over the vanity – all this on the heels of dishes and dog walking, which was preceded by dinner (think lost boys in Hook), which followed an afternoon full of raucous play and explosive fights. The last thing you want to hear ten minutes after you think the job’s done, once you’ve settled into a spot on the couch to ice some aching body part, is an urgent call from your eldest’s bedroom, “Daddyyyyyy!” That’s how Cartter does it, though.

In the past when Cartter’s nighttime pleas were more consistent, the question wasn’t if we’d get the call, but when and how many times. When we complained to others about it, they suggested that we ignore Cartter’s cries, not understanding how relentless he was and forgetting that we had another child in the next room. I imagine that in most homes it’s the baby that keeps the older sibling up. In our house it was the other way around.

These days the call disappears for weeks at a time before resurfacing, possibly for several consecutive nights. Sometimes, you’re accepting. Others, you’re exasperated. No matter what your state of mind, though, there’s only one course of action to take: go to Cartter’s doorway, listen to his complaint, and address it. Sometimes you can fix matters with just a step or two inside his room. Sometimes, he’ll murmur his problem into the fold of his blanket so that you end up traversing his floor strewn with Legos, tripping over them in the dark, frustrated when you discover that he’s asking you to go fetch him chapstick from the living room. Still, you do it. You do it, because he’s conditioned you, because for years the tearful complaint that he’d issue when you went to him in the dark was, “I’m scared.”

Bedtime was different then. The boys weren’t Tasmanian Devils, and we had to do everything for them. Sometimes, I would bring a speaker into the back so that we could listen to music while we bathed and dressed them. I remember wrapping Scotty in a towel and bouncing him in my arms to James Brown songs. I would lay the boys down on diaper changing tables and rub lotion all over them while singing a little tune I made up called “Baby Massage.” They laughed at the pure joy inherent to this method of rash prevention. It was like the exact opposite of their current resistance to sunscreen. After they were in bed, Cartter would invariably end up calling us back to him, afraid, wanting the reassurance of our closeness. When I was at my best, I’d climb into his bed and soothe him. When I was at my worst, I’d speak in harsh tones and let him know I was frustrated. I just wanted him to go to sleep, to have some alone time with his mother, to feel the satisfaction of a job well done.

I was always so tired then. It’s not an excuse for losing patience with my scared toddler. It’s just a fact. Somebody was always waking up in the night, and Danyelle and I had so much anxiety about our precious little babies. I hardly slept at all. I used to come up with games that allowed me to be a semi-conscious participant while the kids scurried around working on me. I’d be a patient in a hospital lying on the couch getting prodded by their instruments, or a diner in a restaurant overreacting to the pretend spicy food they brought me. They liked these kinds of games. They had jobs, and I was still, easily accessible. They were boss, and I was their subject.

One day, I climbed into Cartter’s bed hoping against hope that a game of hide and seek would last long enough to let me catch a nap. When that didn’t happen, I transformed my hiding spot into the site of another game, one in which I was a scared toddler who couldn’t fall asleep, and Cartter was my daddy. The boys would leave me lying there alone, teetering on the edge of consciousness, and I’d wait until I heard their playing start morphing into a fight. Then, my chances of a nap dashed once again, I’d holler, “Daddyyyy!”

Cartter would come stand in the doorway and demand, “What is it?” Then, I’d cry pitifully that I was scared or that I needed my blanket fixed. He’d make a show of being frustrated, sighing and shaking his head as he came to spread the quilt over me, telling me in his crystal clear little toddler voice, “You’ve got to stop. It’s time to go to sleep. I’m starting to get mad.” A few minutes would go by, and we’d do it all over again, each of us holding back laughter as we mocked the other.

When I said goodnight to him last night, Cartter told me that bedtime is “the worst part of the day.” I’ve heard it before, and somehow, I’ve never thought to ask him what the best part is. I just know he doesn’t want the day to be over. He doesn’t want my job to be done. Back when he would call us every night, there might come a point where either Danyelle or I would quickly say, “I’m not doing it,” and the other would trudge into the back reluctantly. Now, I’m less tired, and I find myself hopping up more readily. Some jobs just don’t lend themselves to a neat and tidy completion. Better to enjoy them than wish for them to end.