Editor's Note: A typical night
The table is set with two small plates and two dinner plates. On the small plates: Daddy’s Famous Barbecue Chicken bits, mixed veggies, buttered bread. On the dinner plates: Salad, Daddy’s Overly Spicy Grilled Chicken.
“Mama? Mama? Mama? I need a drink, please.”
I fetch Emma a cup of water.
“I’d like some milk, please.”
“You have water,” I say. “Be content.”
“GRAAAA!”
This is from Ben, who likes to ferociously belt out his latest “word” (thanks to my brilliant decision to teach him to answer, “What noise does a lion make?”).
“Mama, Mama, Mama? I want to make cupcakes. Corn cupcakes. Cupcakes are delicious. Can we make cupcakes? You can be Racheal Ray and I’ll be Sandra Lee, and we’ll make cupcakes?”
“We don’t have the stuff to make cupcakes,” I say. I mean this figuratively and literally. Sure, we’re missing ingredients, but I also don’t have the energy. Not at 6:30 p.m. when I’ve been awake since 5:30 a.m.
“Mama? Mama? Mama? I have an idea. You could go to the store and buy the stuff for cupcakes. All the stuff you need. You could buy it.”
“WAAAFFF! WAAAFFF!” (As in, “What noise does a doggie make?”)
“We’ll do that another day, Emma. It’s late, and you’ll be going to be in bed before too long and we don’t have time to make cupcakes today,” I say.
“Mama? Mama? Do we have time to make cupcakes tomorrow? I love cupcakes.”
“We’ll see, Emma,” I say.
“We’ll see what, Mama?”
An hour later, Ben’s asleep and Emma’s still talking.
“Mama? Mama? Mama? Today, at school, my friend told me my Barbie pony was ugly. She did. She said it was ugly. That wasn’t nice, was it Mama?”
“What happened before then?”
“Before what?”
“Before she told you it was ugly?”
“She asked to hold it and I said no, that it was too special. Because it is. It’s mine. And it’s special.”
“When you take toys to school, you should be ready to share them. If you don’t want to share them, that’s fine, but don’t take them to school,” I say.
Emma looks at me for a long time. Then, very slowly as if she were speaking to someone who may not understand if she were to speak too quickly, she says, “I’m not talking about that, Mama. I’m talking about whether my pony is ugly.”
An hour later, we’re just about to say good night after Emma’s ever-expanding bedtime routine (reading two stories, brushing teeth, getting water, tucking into bed, finding her three special “blankies,” finding her two stuffed Cliffords, reading a Bible story, saying prayers, hearing Daddy tell a story, singing two lullabies, 10 kisses, 10 hugs, 10 Eskimo kisses and one last potty break. Seriously.). All to the endless chorus of: “Mama? Mama? Mama?”
“... do you know dinosaurs are extinct, but we can see their bones at a musum, I mean a masam, I mean a mubalam, I mean a museum?”
“... are the bugs all underground?”
“... are the princesses still in Disney World?”
Finally, I’m about to have a moment of silence. I back out of the door.
“Mama? Mama?”
“What, Emma?” I say too sharply.
“Mama, I love you.”
“I love you, too, Emma,” I say. And then I park myself on the couch next to Jon, who, for the next two hours will hear: “Jon? Jon? Jon?”
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