Fathermucker (28 page)

Part III

Friday, 7:47 p.m.

F
ATHERHOOD IS PRESSURE, AND GOOD FATHERS DON'T WILT IN
the heat. They manage the day's chaotic demands with grace, with poise, with calm, cool detachment. Like Tom Brady operating a two-minute drill to win the big game
slant to Moss, curl to Welker, move the chains
but without the thrill of victory, or the ESPN highlight reel, or the diamond-encrusted Super Bowl ring, or the ticker-tape parade in the Canyon of Heroes, or the celebrity endorsements, or the contract bonuses, or the waiting arms of Gisele Bündchen.

B
EDTIME: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH.

In the Great War, they say, soldiers on the front lines went out of their way to avoid killing their counterparts in the opposing trench. The German infantrymen would give ample warning before opening fire, so the Brits could get out of the way; the latter happily reciprocated. Horrible enough to be mired in mud on some apocalyptic wasteland, Siegfried Sassoon'd so far from home; why make it worse with excessive bloodshed? This was the mind-set of many of the soldiers. But paperwork had to be filed, reports had to be written, by officers far from the foxholes, for superior officers even farther from the foxholes, and so, once a day, the rat-a-tat of gunfire
the hi hi hee of the field artillery
would pierce the Flemish stillness, and all would not be quiet on the Western front. This was battle, and battle, for reasons that need no elaboration, comprised the most stressful part of the soldier's day.

Bedtime is battle; battle, bedtime. This is what I'm thinking as I march my charges,
left . . . left . . . left right left
after much flustered cajoling
I don't know but I been told (I don't know but I been told)
, up the stairs to the battlefield of Roland's room
Make my sippy cup juice cold (make my sippy cup juice cold)
, where the Bed Wars saga begins.

The late afternoon was easy: the calm before the Katrina of night. Tired from their long days, Roland and Maude supped on cottage cheese and apple juice and hung out in the basement, one on each couch, taking in the Noggin fare (
Max & Ruby, Olivia, The Fresh Beat Band, Dora the Explorer)
.

Then they started fighting for no good reason, and the initial transgression—Roland smacking Maude across the face, in this case, although both parties were equally responsible—was the assassination of the Archduke that lit the Balkan powder keg of full-on conflict that kicked off the Great War of bedtime.

And here we are.

My mission, should I choose to accept it (as if! Like Ethan Hunt, I'm not really allowed to decline):

Thirteen steps lead down.

On paper, it doesn't look difficult. How hard can it be to turn off a fucking light? In practice, however, it's the sort of operation that would confound Danny Ocean. And Danny Ocean had his band of merry men; with Stacy in California, I don't have a single accomplice, let alone eleven. I'm on my own. Again. For the fifth night in a row.

Although they were in a state of near catatonia during ninety minutes of
PRESCHOOL ON TV
, Roland and Maude recover their second wind as soon as they hit the stairs. They bound around the rooms like uncaged puppies, wrestling on the ground, kicking each other, smacking each other, and laughing their proverbial heads off. If they had tails, they'd be wagging.

A father uninitiated in the ways of
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child
(long live Marc Weissbluth, M.D.!) would interpret this as a sign that they are not really tired
I don't know but I been told (I don't know but I been told)
. That father would be wrong
Sleep behavior's hard to mold (sleep behavior's hard to mold)
. What I'm witnessing is the last gasp of fight before the long night's slumber, the part at the end of the horror movie where Jason or Freddy or whoever the villain of the
Saw
movies is comes back to life one last time, for the ultimate scare. The trick is to have the kids already in bed, with the lights out, at the instant they realize they're zonked. Makes it harder for them to change their minds, to fight through it.

I don't mind the roughhousing—although I'm always afraid someone will get a chipped tooth, or a black eye, or some other injury that looks, to the casual observer, to the teachers at Thornwood, to the instructors at Barefoot Dance, to the other playdate mommies, like evidence of child abuse—because they enjoy it, and it burns off excess energy. The key is to quiet them down before the play fighting disintegrates into real fighting, like what just went down in the basement. Tonight, the transition goes smoothly. After two minutes of frolic—I watch as the numbers on Roland's clock move from 7:48 to 7:49 to 7:50, mainly to avert my worried eyes while they thrash about—I'm able to lure Maude into the bathroom, where she makes a big show of washing her hands.

“By myself,” she admonishes me, when I try to turn on the taps. “I can do it!”

With the girl thus occupied, I'm able to turn my attention to the boy, who has rediscovered
Wonders of the World
, a children's picture book I picked up at Oblong Books over in Rhinebeck. He's going through the various landmarks with his index finger, naming them: Dome of the Rock, Angkor Wat, Leaning Tower of Pisa. What a gift from the universe! Understand, last night, Roland and I read through an entire floor-plan book, determining who among his friends and family would occupy each bedroom:

There are a hundred and twenty pages in that book, two floor-plan designs per page (and sometimes more). I insisted we stop after half an hour of reading, but he would have gone on until the book was finished; I think he did, after I left the room. So you can imagine my delight that he picked out
Wonders of the World
. I would much rather discuss the Great Wall of China and the Sydney Opera House than great rooms and garage apartments.

“Roland,” I tell him, “take your clothes off.”

“But Daddy, I have to wash my hands first.”

He's right, as he always is with matters of routine, with trainspotting. I don't usually put his pajamas on until
after
his face is washed and his teeth are brushed, because nine times out of ten, he spills water on his pee-jays and I have to change him. Instead, I don't change him until he's washed and brushed. But I'm flying solo tonight, and I want to accelerate the process.

“It's okay. Maude's in there now. Let's just get your pee-jays on.”

By some miracle, Roland actually listens to me. He begins to remove his shirt—one of those one-piece deals designed to look like a T-shirt over a long-sleeved white undershirt; on the front, in a heavy-metal-looking font, is the inscription
SOLD MY SOUL FOR ROCK
'N'
ROLL
, only
soul
is crossed out and replaced by the word
sister
; ah, the comedians at Target—but he has trouble with it, as he does with most unpracticed acts that require decent motor skill, gross or fine. He flails his arms and contorts his body like Houdini attempting a straight-jacket escape.

“Wah,” he yells out, almost falling over as he extricates his head from the shirt. “Stupid shirt!” He hurls it toward the window, in the opposite direction of the hamper, where it should go. Then he starts to move toward a pile of Thomas tracks that's attracted his sudden interest.

“Roland,” I remind him. “Take off your clothes. Pants
and
underpants.”

“But I like these underpants.”

“They're dirty. We have to change them.”

“But Daddy . . . ”

“Pants and underpants.”

“How about we make a deal? How about pants but no underpants?”

“No. Pants
and
underpants.”

If he persisted, he could probably win this particular battle. The world will not spin off its axis if he doesn't put on clean underwear until the morning. But he doesn't. The fight vanishes from his eyes, as if he shut off a remote control, and he quickly and more or less gracefully kicks off his pants and underpants. Then, without me having to issue an edict, he plucks off his socks.

Now that he's ready for getting ready for bed—it's such a fucking
process
—I check on Maude. She's still at the sink, her hands so full of lather they look porcelain.

“That's enough, Maude. Rinse, now.”

“No,” she says. “I need . . . I need more soap.”

I take away the bar of Dove—which is about half as big as it was five minutes ago—and over her vocal protests, hold her hands under the water.

“Too hot! Too hot!”

It's not too hot; it's not even lukewarm; she's just saying this as a form of protest. But I kill the left tap anyway, humoring her.

“Rinse.”

As if granting me a major concession: “Okay, Daddy.”

While I wait, I do a quick inventory: two juice cups, check; three pacifiers, check; Roland's star blanket, check; Maude's frog, check. The prop master has done his job. I turn on the noise machines.

“Now we have to brush.”

“No! I don't want to brush my teeth.”

“Do you want to get corn teeth?”

I'm fuzzy on the origins of the
corn teeth
concept—it was Stacy's invention—but the notion terrifies our neat-freak Virgo daughter. She does what I tell her. I take her toothbrush—an electric one with Hello Kitty on the handle—and move for the Disney Princess toothpaste.

“No, Daddy!” she screams, in what can only be described as horror. “I don't like that kind!” As if I accidentally grabbed a tube of Preparation H, or mixed up the Smart Rinse with Mister Clean.

“Oh, right. Sorry.”

Roland
likes the Princess toothpaste; Maude prefers the Little Bear kind. Duh.

She runs the motorized bristles across her teeth for approximately thirty seconds, then flips off the switch, hands me the toothbrush, grabs the two pacifiers on the vanity, and is gone.

“Take off your clothes,” I yell after her. “Time to put your pajamas on.”

She follows the first directive at once; like her mother, she likes to prance around in the nude. It will take some doing to get her into her pee-jays, but for now, I let her be.

“Okay, Roland. Your turn.”

Roland is old enough to get himself ready for bed. He knows how to wash his hands, knows how to brush his teeth. But he hates doing these things. So every night he fights me tooth(paste) and (dirty finger)nail.

“Come on, Roland. Now!”

Why does raising your voice not work? Is it because they know that we're full of shit, that the limit of our anger is an increase in volume and a reddening of the face? Carrot and stick doesn't work so well to begin with, but when there's no stick, and they know it, you're kind of screwed.

No sticks, but here are carrots, in the form of chewable vitamins. I usually forget to dole out the vitamins—that's more of Stacy's purview—but the kids love them. They love them enough that, like dogs and puppy treats, the promise of a vitamin will generally compel them to roll over, play dead, give me paw. Like lollipops and dishes of ice cream, vitamins are the prison cigarettes of young childhood, the currency that buys favors.

“Who wants vitamins?”

As if by magic, two butt-naked children appear in the bathroom.
That
was easy.

“I want vitamins!”

“No,
I
want vitamins!”

“But what's for
me
?”

“You can
both
have vitamins,” I tell them. “
After
you finish getting ready for bed. Roland, wash your hands and brush your teeth. Maude, let's put your pajamas on. Come on.” I give the bottle a shake for Pavlovian emphasis.

The ploy, incredibly, works. Roland does his thing in the bathroom, and although Maude refuses to put on underpants—“I want to air out my china!”—I'm able to coax her into her pale green Tinker Bell nightgown.

I bring the vitamins into Roland's room, shaking them teasingly, like the Pied Percussionist. The kids follow. I put the bottle on the shelf and open the dresser drawer to find a pair of pajamas when the fight starts.