Welcome to the cult of bedtime
PARENTING | So I initially wrote this on my phone.
With my thumbs. From 9:30-10:30 PM at night, in that first window of free time I have after my child, The Smeetch, has (dog willing) finally fallen asleep. And I threw it up on Facebook. And so many people said it was funny and I should send it somewhere like McSweeney’s, that I figured I’d put it here for posterity. (A couple of people didn’t understand the light tone in which I was posting and some even went so far as to armchair diagnose my kid with a mental illness, which, I mean … coolcoolcool, but I digress.)
Why not send it to McSweeney’s, you ask?
BECAUSE THIS IS NOT SATIRE, MY FRIENDS. This is a 100% true and journalistic accounting of what bedtime looks like in my house. I have exaggerated nothing. I have made up nothing. THIS IS ALL TRUE.
And while I’m at it, another truth is this: You roll the dice when you decide to have a kid. You don’t know what you’re going to get. They enter the world with distinct personalities, temperaments, and tendencies. They are not clay for us to mould and shape (though perhaps some level of moulding — and molding, I’m sorry to say — is possible), they are people. Small people. Sometimes loud people. INDIVIDUAL people.
And I know this is not a popular opinion, but that’s just tough noogies for us. Trying to force them to be what we imagined, to make our own lives easier, just rarely works (and often, I’m sorry to say, is sometimes abusive to the child, at least in terms of what I’ve witnessed). They are not here to venerate us, and they are not here to extend our imagined life. They are not our property. They did not ask to exist, and making them was a selfish act. People hate to hear that, but it’s true. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE CHILDREN. YOU DO IT BECAUSE YOU WANT TO. It’s for YOU.
I wanted to. And I knew it was selfish. And I did it anyway. So here I am, with The Smeetch, who is, as we say in our house, the smeetchiest smeetch that ever did smeetch!
(You are not part of our cult. That’s why you don’t get it.)
I believe our job, as parents, is to help and comfort these small humans who did not ask to be here as much as possible. To smooth their way and give them whatever it is they need, no matter how inconvenient or difficult. And you will have NO FUCKING CLUE how difficult it might be beforehand. You roll. the. dice.
Many many children are easy. Placid. Some are boring. Some are … just not very smart. That’s not a bad thing. We do not all have to be the same. Some children are … like mine. The last thing I would ever call her is boring. Neither is she “easy”. Never has been. She sometimes seems like a genius. Sometimes barely functional as a human. Like I say, you roll the dice. So my advice is this: Get ready for some surprises. Ride that wave. It’s okay to not have kids, but if you do, they are gonna be who they are, regardless of everything, so …
GIRD YOUR LOINS, Y’ALL. That’s all.
Anyway, here we go: A 100% true accounting of bedtime. I know it will sound absolutely batshit. It is a routine we are currently mired in, so inured to it, that it almost doesn’t feel weird anymore, but read on and judge for yourselves.
First things first
This bizarre routine MUST be adhered to, followed and performed to a T or, she flips the F out. I am not kidding. She loses it. Endless demonic screaming. It’s no joke. And so, we do it. (See above.)
It begins with light, or rather, the absence of light, and who controls that absence
She must pull the chain to turn out the bedside lamp herself. This is non-negotiable. Do not even consider trying to turn out the light if your name is not The Smeetch. Do NOT “forget”, or you will pay.
Eyes on your own work
Next, neither adult can be “looking”. We must look “away”. If she so much as catches my eye for a nanosecond, she will melt-allthewaythefuck-down. So I must determinedly look at the wall, all the while actually watching her through the corner of one eye, because while I must not LOOK, I must, at all times, be READY to look, because my TURN to look is coming.
Oh, and I must also have the light from my phone on, oriented just so, to illuminate what SHE wants to see, but I must never mention this, nor (I’ll say it again) look myself, until it is the correct time.
Partners in nighttime crime
So. She gets her favourite stuffy (a weird green penguin named Penguini, rhymes with linguini). She examines his face in the light, specifically his nose/beak. She pronounces the nose appropriately “squishy”.
She turns Penguini’s face to me. THIS IS MY MOMENT. As mentioned, I must discern this though the corner of my eye, because again, as mentioned, I am not to LOOK before the time is right, but neither am I to delay a single moment once Penguini’s face is presented. It is now time. I NOW AND ONLY NOW must LOOK, and not half-assedly, either. I must sincerely examine Penguini’s nose/beak, and audibly pronounce it “squidgy” (note: NOT “squishy”).
This is not mama-specific
She then turns to NKL on her other side. He must also examine and confirm the condition of Penguini’s nose. He, however, is permitted to declare it “squishy”.
And if you thought that was the end of it, you would be wrong.
You sweet summer child
Next, she pulls up another toy, this time a large, heavy, sensory hedgehog creature with those flipping/pettable sequins on its back and a belly made up of 60% gravel (because his heft is supposed to be comforting). This one is called Hedgy. Again, WE MUST NOT LOOK.
SHE WILL CHECK. DON’T EVEN TRY IT, MAMA/DADDY.
We stare off into our respective middle distances. Again, I must correctly direct the light, without seeming to.
All bodies are good bodies
She examines Hedgy’s nose. Pets it. Feels it. Pronounces it, “Pointy, but soft”. Hedgy is turned to me. Again, I am both permitted and required to look, with SINCERITY, to confirm that Hedgy’s nose is, indeed, “Pointy, but soft.” The routine is repeated on her other side with Nathan.
And. That’s. Not. All.
Again, the adults must avert our eyes. The final toy is brought forth from his designated place (where one of us had better have placed him before this all began or there will be hell to pay).
An American treasure
This toy is a solid plastic figurine, entirely unsuitable for nighttime cuddling. ‘Tis a Woody doll, as voiced by American Treasure Tom Hanks in the beloved 1990s animated film, Toy Story. This creature is a relatively new addition to our household, having been purchased a mere month ago. (In desperation. After she wouldn’t stop whining about “NEEDING” one. Hooray for Target. Ask me another time if I regret letting her watch that movie.)
ANYWAY.
Be the three-year-old detective you want to see in the world
Again, she checks to make sure we are “not looking”. She tries to catch us out, swivelling her head (she thinks) quickly and unexpectedly, ready to find us breaking the rules. We can’t be trusted for a moment. Because we are EVIL and, in the long road to parsing exactly how she needed this obsessive nonsense routine to go, have both, I admit, “looked”. Entirely by accident, but that’s no excuse, and she will never forget it. Her trust is broken. So she swivels and checks and tries to catch us out and if we so much as allow our eyeballs to drift in her direction, she screams “Don’t look! YOU CAN’T LOOK!!!”
We have learned. We do not look.
More of Splash-era Hanks, in the end
She holds Woody in the light. Examines his nose. Pronounces it “pointy”, which is both fine and accurate, but then seemingly out of nowhere, she admonishes him, “Don’t smell my bum!”
Woody, apparently, is a notorious nighttime bum smeller, with a very pointy nose made expressly for the purpose of sneaky late-night bum smelling.
The toy is turned to me. QUICKLY, I LOOK.
“Very pointy,” I must then say, touching the sharp, hard nose to check. And then, as she did, I must add, “Don’t smell my bum!”
Where’s my Oscar?
Again, SINCERITY IS KEY.
I must truly give the impression that I believe that were I NOT to say this, Woody, the doll, would certainly endeavour to surreptitiously sniff my bum in the night.
Frankly, were he to do so, I would be fine with it at this point, but I am not the boss of this here rodeo.
Woody is turned to Nathan. He gets a little variety. He must check the nose, sure, but he is to say, “Pointy bum smeller.” I don’t know why this is permitted, but it is. These are the vagaries of the routines inherent to the cult of bedtime.
It’s not over, my friends.
Woody is then AGAIN examined by Elizabeth. She declares, for the second time, “Pointy! Don’t smell my bum!” (Why? WHY?)
And finally, sweet ever-loving Jesus, FINALLY, the toy is placed to her left.
Congratulations, young warriors
If all has gone smoothly and this routine has been adhered to without variation, this beautiful, strange, determined, loud, stubborn, smart, funny, wonderful, terrible child will settle in for a cuddle and will fall asleep within 15 minutes.
It is now 9:30 pm. And I am free.
We do this EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love my child. We both do. Like most parents, we love her more than we ever expected to love anything, and it is an overwhelming wonder on most days. Though she is not an easy child to parent, she is very easy to love. We are doing our best to help her grow up. Being her mother is the thing that has sort of subsumed everything else. So much so that today is my birthday, and I am spending an hour putting up this post, rather than my traditional birthday post, because what am I at this point, other than this child’s mother? I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think about it. I am here, but I am hers, first.
I think if you have easy children, this is not the case. You retain more of your individual self at the forefront because you can. That hasn’t been the case for me, and for now, it’s fine.
For whatever it is worth, I’ll say that it is much easier now, despite this bedtime routine, than it used to be. This whole business with the noses is nothing compared to the hours of bouncing and screaming and crying that took up so much of her first two years of life. It feels like a gift.
And not for nothing, but the first time she trotted out that “don’t smell my bum” line, I almost peed myself laughing. And that sums up my experience of parenthood. It is so hard, sometimes I feel like I am going to die. At the same time, it is so funny and wonderful, I can sometimes barely keep from peeing myself.
You roll the dice.