TODDLER (3am-10am):
3:12am: Awaken
Scream your twin awake, run to & fight twin for door handle, rattle it hard like ghost of Jacob Marley
Pour into darkened hallway like box of tarantulas
Systematic deconstruction of Mama’s bed for repurposing as sardine can
Position self on one side of Mama; presumably twin takes other side, but BOTH SHOULD BE MINE. Make this clear.
Lob milk cup and/or stuffed animal, require assistance recovering (2 sets of 3 @ 1-hr intervals)
4am: Pee through diaper, mention “very soggy,” fall asleep immediately.
Backfist Mama’s face while sleeping to make sure she’s there (optional)
Reawaken, 5am, assert that THIS MILK HAS WATER IN IT. Hold fast.
7am: wake for day, begin I NEED symphony on high volume, including descant (recruit twin).
Shout for banana, eschew banana. Shout for SOMETHING ELSE. Eschew something else.
Push twin down in precarious location (2 sets of 1 @ 1-min interval)
Open & empty bottom rung of fridge door. Smuggle ketchup somewhere. Leave fridge ajar. Freezer repeat optional.
Accept smoothie, feed to tractor.
Find library DVD case, remove DVDs & place on smoothie straw. Spin.
10am: nanny arrives. Run out back door naked with vacuum components, put in pool.
PARENT (3am-10am):
3:12am: hear doorknob rattling from within the void. Release adrenaline. Engage in coughing fit that causes your eyes to fall out.
Meet hall tarantulas with anything other than active & articulate rage. Say, for example, “let’s sort this out” instead of “what fresh hell is this.”
Assign blankets of the realm to new bed companions in such a way that if you need to leave to cough or pee or both, you won’t risk waking them.
File yourself into 10-inch slot between companions. Tilt face so that milk cup/stuffed owl won’t hit cornea again.
Try to sleep.
4am: Notice damp patch to left of your hip. Ignore.
Doze.
5am: Assure plaintiff that milk has not been watered down (it has). Shake cup vigorously, explaining in a whisper that now it is mixed up and will be fine.
When plaintiff renounces explanation, go downstairs & get real thing from fridge. Don’t let fridge light hit your brain. Get back upstairs & re-file self between companions without waking the sleeping one.
7am: try not to yell. Yell. Try to help them down the stairs. Give up & leave them to the wolves that are each other. Get downstairs and make coffee as fast as you can.
Make nine different breakfast foods, pretending you’re not capitulating. Clean up breakfast foods as they are rejected & repurposed.
Follow trail of disassembly & de(con)struction, swabbing with wet cloth and whichever spray bottle you can find.
Close fridge. Close freezer.
Clean tractor.
Make another breakfast.
Close fridge. Close freezer.
Encourage use of potty.
Clean up floor pee.
Ignore housemates for ten minutes while you finish revamping your website. Imagine hard that you have skills beyond woe & dissolution management. Imagine it so hard that you remember it’s true. Pep-talk yourself in (greasy hand-printed) mirror, ignoring the fact that you haven’t showered in days, in order to show people that there is a place for them to learn about your work outside of keeping yourself and your housemates alive.
9:53am: Abstain from judging anyone in the house.
10am: coffee, flex hope muscle (3 sets of 2 @ any interval). Watch both children depart in loving care of magical nanny.
From inside eerily quiet house, thumb through photos of the people who just left.
Witness, frame by frame, how between the waves of absolute nonsense, they help each other freely, fully— with exquisite beauty, & unmitigated joy.
Write tomorrow’s checklist, knowing this.
"Imagine hard that you have skills beyond woe & dissolution management." is my life.
Also, I think your housemates might be woodland sprites.
I particularly like, “try not to yell. Yell.” And then the “thumbing through photos of the people who live here.” Oh how you make me laugh - and I’m sorry, I know it’s NOT funny at the time…
Love,
Auntie C