Beautiful
Now and then, Cute Redhead’s work will require some travel, leaving me to fend for myself and ponder the age-old question: “can three kids puzzle out where to hide their dad’s body and make it look like an accident?”
I think I’m a pretty average husband where Listening is concerned. Meaning, I suck at it. She could lecture, show slides, and graph the whole conversation. I’d come back one hour later with something brilliant like, “…that talking you were just doing there? Was that to me?”
Which actually went off something like this: (taps sleeping wife on shoulder) “Jane, what time is your flight again?”
“…it’s at eight.”
“A ha. Which means you’re up and gone by six.”
“Yes.”
“I see. So, in other words, I’m waking up to seven children all by myself.”
“Yes.”
“A ha. And this doesn’t bother you? I mean, you can live with yourself?”
(Wife snoring) (read: “Yes, I can live with myself, wuss.”)
Seven children. Not three. Seven. Alpha Male successfully negotiated a friend (2) for a sleep over. Which cascaded into Beta Male successfully campaigning for two of his little hoodlum pals to also sleep over (plus 3), which dominoed into Charlie Girl (aka The Mistress Of Light and Splendor) successfully bargaining to include her little confederate in said sleep over (equals 7).
So, Wife is up and gone and wheels-up before I’ve even rolled over and realized it fell to me to make the coffee. And then turn into Short Order Cook and crank out pancakes, eggs, bacon, and orange juice for the Demonic Horde (which was actually a lot of fun because it turned into a food prep free-for-all complete with Aerosmith lending their very loud talents and encouraging us all to Cook! This! Way!)
And the next four days unfolded or unraveled, depending on whether you think three square meals a day at three different drive-thrus is a crooked and dark. The laundry didn’t get touched, the dishes actually did, and the kids were accounted for at the end of each day, with bumps and bruises well within acceptable norms. So, all in all, a wild success, this particular solo flight.
It’s not a stretch to say I let the spawn more or less run wild too. And run wild they did. Our house somehow transubstantiated into Ground Zero with No Adult Supervision, attracting every child in five surrounding counties. There are rumors of water balloons in the bathroom (mild), the cat being not at all compliant to testing the suction power of the shop vac (very powerful and not at all mild), and bikes on the roof (even I don’t want to know the details of that one).
I just know that on the afternoon of the first day, I was in the kitchen knocking out a masterful impression of an octopus, putting:
…one Band-Aid on skinned knee (for neighbor kid)
…one plate of leftover pizza in the microwave (for me)
…one recalcitrant pre-teenage boy in his place for burying his little brother in the sofa bed (it’s NOT a sofa bed)
…one thirty-five pound bag of dog food back into the bag because, call me old-fashioned, but I just think dog food stores better in the bag and not under the dining room table (not making that up).
…one driver side window up even though the sudden rain storm had already come and gone rendering that one moot.
Now, all that happened pretty much simultaneously and in the space of a Parent Half Hour, which in Mortal Time is two and a half minutes.
And you should be amazed. Amazed and awestruck. Inspired, even. You should be all these things and more. And you would be…
…because there’s one thing in that two and a half minute onslaught you don’t know about. You don’t know about it because I left it out…because even if I did include it in that siege, you would have missed it.
Just like I did.
In the midst of blood, accusations, denials, lunch, rain storms, dog food, threats, pizza and microwave buzzers going off, you would have missed little miss Little Girl seeking purchase in the gaps in the hysteria with, “Daddy?”
Which took no less than half a dozen “Daddy’s!” to register, but when they finally did breach Male Limbic Brain (now covered in blood and dog food crumbs), it went like this:
“…baby, what is it, honey, Daddy’s kind of busy wi—”
“Can you write “What is your name?’”
“—with all of you all needing to—can I write what?”
“Can you write “What is your name?’”
And she’s tiny, right? She’s tiny. She weighs about two and a half cents soaking wet, and she’s freckled and smiling and hopeful and she’s holding up a pencil and a piece of paper.
I don’t even pause to smile. I don’t suspend the sentencing I’m about to reign down on big brother for stuffing little brother (again) inside the sofa bed (it’s NOT a sofa bed). I don’t luxuriate in Life wanting to get all cute and Hallmarky with me and this precious, hopeful, tiny little freckled thing asking me for help.
I didn’t wipe the blood from the neighbor kid’s skinned knee from my hands, and I think I was cussing because I had just swallowed a bite of pizza and set my esophagus on fire with the cheesy, white bubbling napalm.
(Sighs) (grabs pencil) (grabs paper) (writes down “What is your name?”) “Here you go, sweethea—August, so help me God, I am going to bring you within an inch of your life you litt—”
“Thank you, daddy.”
“—you’re welcome, honey, go play now and be carefu—ALEX, for the last *&*#! time put down the butcher knife!”
Okay, all that? Normal. That’s life as a parent, and not at all unusual when one’s spouse is away and it’s All Hands On Deck. Not at all strange. So, if any of it makes you laugh, great. I wasn’t laughing. Honestly, though, I’d be lying if I claimed I was losing my mind. I mean, I was, yes. But so what? So were about one billion other parents on the planet at that very moment.
This. Is. Life.
The rest of the day contributed no shortage of comparable goings on. All the way up to that Most Holy of Redemptions: bed time, which had me considering duct tape and fishing line if it would keep the two boys in their own damned beds.
It wasn’t until the fourth threat to introduce them to their other brothers (now long forgotten and buried under the back porch), that I leveled enough seriousness to produce obedience. At which point I mussed the hair on their respective Hell-spawned heads and bid them, “Sleep tight, you nutjobs.”
So that I could tuck in my little girl. Who was already under her comforter, nothing but happy little eyes peeping out.
“Hey, pumpkin.”
“Hi, daddy. Daddy, is it sometimes hard to be a parent?” (I promise she actually asked me this.)
Tired. Smile. “Sometimes, baby. But it’s okay.” Kiss. “Good night, baby girl.”
“Good night, daddy.” Light out.
“Daddy?”
Sigh. “Yes, honey.”
“Have you ever seen her?”
“Seen who, sweetheart?”
“The Tooth Fairy. Have you ever seen her?”
“Ah.” (pinching that fold of skin between the eyes) “Well…once I thought I did. She’s very fast, Emma, and I couldn’t tell for sure. Now, night-night, baby.”
“Night-night.”
And then I collapsed on my own bed and wondered how much loose change the furniture would surrender.
Tooth Fairy.
Emma lost a tooth and I don’t think I need to waste anytime explaining to anyone how momentous a lost tooth is. To say nothing for the expected currency the sprite trades for missing dental work.
I laid there intending to gather strength and resolve enough to make sure that when the sun rose, her heart didn’t crash. This was risky because the house was quiet and my back was killing me and the mattress was doing something like a siren call, tempting me to the depths of uninterrupted sleep. But I remembered her little face and the bright, believing eyes and I can’t help but agree that this innocence is, surely, worth a few bucks.
So, with the skill one acquires from years of fluency in the sounds of a sleeping house, I crept into her room to find exactly what I expected: my baby girl, curled up on her side…just like she does; little mouth open still looking like baby breath…just like she does; hands tucked under her cheek…just like she does.
Just like I expected.
And then something I didn’t expect: there, on the pillow beside her, written in her own first-grade hand, a note:
“What is your name?”
I just stared. Then I sat on the bed with no worry that I would wake her, because little girls sleep the sleep of the righteous.
I’ve known the Tooth Fairy to leave a lot of cash at our house. I’ve done my level best to field all kinds of questions about her job, what she does with all those teeth, and “does she know the Easter Bunny?” (answer: Yes, they were in grade school together.) I’m a parent so, naturally, I’m partial to a lot of Privileged Information when it comes to Magic, Surprises, Santa’s Phone Number, How Long Can You Ground Someone (answer: Forever), How To Rock A Baby, How To Cut A Sandwich Right, What Do Reindeer Do All Summer, and Daddy, How Long Will You Love Me (answer: Forever).
But in all this knowledge…in all this Repository of Things Only Mommies and Daddies Know, I’ve never come across the answer to “What is your name?” Let alone the question.
But there it was. Written on a piece of paper. Perfectly imperfect and believing and all slanted wrong.
Come morning, and before she was half awake, Emma would reach a small hand under a small pillow and find a small jackpot. And on the pillow she’d find, written in blue-green sparkly-swirly Fairyscript something very few little girls in the world ever know: that the Tooth Fairy does have a name (it’s “Dentina Luna Faireena”).
All that would come in the morning.
At the moment, though, I sat, worn out, bone-tired, yelled out, cussed out, bloodied and staring at four more days until Mom came home. And yeah, guys (the ladies already know), I got all teared up when I read her note.
“Daddy, is it sometimes hard to be a parent?”
Yeah, honey. Sometimes it’s Hell.
But it’s beautiful.
Pure awesomeness.
Thanks Ash :)
testing