Maybe parenting is the ultimate form of essentialism. Time spent away from your kids comes at a cost.
Better be worth it.
“Andrew?” I look up to find Amanda standing there, holding Ellie on her hip, our niece yawning.
“Oh. Right. Tooth brushing and–”
“It's all done. Just need Goodnight Moon.”
“Moooonnnnn!” Ellie yawns.
Her room has a crib, an upholstered chair, more toys than a toy shop, and a shelf of books. Goodnight Moon is an orange and green square on the chair's seat. We settle in, Ellie against my chest.
She turns the first thick board-book page and before I can say a word, she recites:
“Gay gee oom, teyfone. Yed boon...”
I guess I'm just the holder. She's the reader.
Amanda's got her phone out, snapping pictures surreptitiously. As Ellie “reads,” I find the chair too comfortable not to relax, the intonation of her words hypnotic. Here, I'm in a world I don't control, where the hardest decision is whether to comb a toddler's hair, and where just being present is all that's required of me.
I could get used to this.
“Nite ey whey,” she says dramatically, closing the book and giving me a closed-mouth smile that reminds me of Shannon. “Ah done.”
“All done,” I repeat, kissing the top of her head.
Tucking her into her crib is easy. She settles down fast, and I tiptoe out, feeling accomplished. The distance from her room to the living room is short, and Amanda's been gone for less than five minutes, but when I arrive, I find my wife fast asleep on the sofa, her head on a huge throw pillow, body curled on her side, feet propped on an ottoman.
How often do you get to just watch your gorgeous partner in stillness?
My laptop pings with a notification, and next thing I know, I'm deep in work. Hours pass, punctuated only by Amanda turning slightly, or my body's need for bio breaks. I go into a work flow state, hyperfocused.
The click of the front door opening makes me look up from my laptop, a smiling Shannon and Declan walking in, her eyes immediately landing on my sleeping wife.
“Ellie tire her out?”
“Everything tires her out.” I close my laptop. “How was your evening?”
“Great.” Declan looks down the hall. “Ellie okay?”
“Sleeping like a baby.”
He gives me a sour look. “You're about to learn how vile that saying really is.”
“We fed her. Bathed her. I combed her hair,” I say pointedly, earning a squint from Shannon, “read to her, put her to bed, and–”
“MAMA!” Ellie screams, suddenly in the hall, running for Shannon like she's an Olympic sprinter.
“Uh huh. Put her to bed. Right.”
“How'd she get out of her crib?” I ask, incredulous.
“Monkey toes,” Shannon says with a look that makes it clear this isn't Ellie's first breakout.
“She's been asleep for four hours!”
“Sure, bro.” He gives me a hug and a yawn at the same time as Amanda sits up, rubbing her eyes.
“I fell asleep?” she asks, picking up Declan's contagious yawn.
All I can do is nod, now in the throes of my own jaw stretching. Exhaustion washes over me.
“Here,” Shannon says, returning from the kitchen with Ellie on her hip, holding a glass of water. “Drink this.”
Amanda takes the glass without comment and does as told, rubbing the small of her back with her free hand.
Shannon yawns. Ellie pats her chest and says, “Milk,” then gives her the saddest little pouty smile, big eyes used to her advantage.
With a laugh, Shannon heads toward the bedroom. She waves. “Thank you so much, guys, but the queen demands me at court.”
“So does mine,” I say as I put my arm around Amanda's waist and guide her to the door. She leans into me, my instincts correct.
“Thanks,” Dec says, eyes tired, but face filled with more emotion than usual.
“Thank you. She's adorable, and I learned something tonight,” I tell him.
“What's that?” he asks as Amanda yawns again, moving into the hall.
“When they write my real obituary, sixty years from now, it needs to include Uncadoo.”
11
Amanda
“You want a piece of white cheese,” Tyler says to me as Carol and I sit at her dining table, a plate piled with cheese cubes and carrots in front of us. The roasted cauliflower hummus is half gone, most of it in my stomach, feeding the babies.
“Go ahead, Tyler, but that's the last one,” Carol says to him. He snatches two and runs off.
“I thought you said one piece?” I point out to her, chuckling as Tyler glares at me from the door for even mentioning his thievery.
She laughs. “He refuses to take anything in an odd number. Has to be even. If you give him nine Skittles, he'll ask for a tenth. If you don't have any more, he'll make you take one and eat it, so he has eight.”
“That's quirky.”
“That's Tyler.”
Now nine, he's a tiny little thing for his age, and he reminds me more of a five- or six-year-old than the third grader he is. Carol kept him back a year, his summer birthday making it easy. But he turns ten soon, and yet he's so little-kid-like.
“I really like him,” I confess, feeling self-conscious for reasons I don't understand.
Carol beams, but asks, “Why do adults always say that, but poor Tyler can't make a friend his own age to save his life?”
“Really? He's so–”
“Amanda! Four ropes on the rescue game!” Tyler pipes up.
“Yeah?”
“Four! Four more!”
He runs back into the living room, the distinct sound of a video game playing. Then he appears again, iPad in hand, and sits on the chair next to mine, leaning on my arm, chewing what I assume are the two pieces of cheese he took earlier.
“He's so sweet. And happy.”
“Try teaching him to shower,” Carol says with a shudder.
“NO SHOWER!” Tyler yells, but his eyes are fixed on the screen.
“See?”
“Why don't you like showers?” I ask Tyler, who reluctantly gives me a split second of eye contact before going back to the game, but he snuggles in at my side.
“Don't like water in your eyes.”
“I don't, either,” I tell him.
That makes him look up. “It feels yucky.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Yucky is bad.”
“Hmmm. Sometimes,” I say, earning myself a skeptical look.
“Yucky is always bad. Always,” he emphasizes. And then he spends a full minute repeating something from a video game he watches, the words and numbers not making sense.
“Twenty minutes of screen time left, Tyler,” Carol says to him. “See the timer?”
He looks up. “Okay.” Then back to his game.
Carol sighs, motioning for me to follow her outside to her patio. She and the boys live in a simple little Cape, smaller than her parents' home and definitely more run down, but it's a decent place. Until a few years ago, she didn't have a steady, full-time job with benefits like the one she has with Anterdec. I know Shannon and Declan try to get her to accept their help, but other than help with Tyler’s expensive therapy or access to certain specialists, she turns them down.