Hurling Objects

     Last night, before reading Fox in Socks, I said to Clara, "Can I tell you something?"

     "Yes," she quickly replied.  Anything to hurry along the evidently meaningful conversation coming.  To wipe that steady, overbearing gaze off my face and get me to read about Mr. Knox Sir.

     "Tonight Mommy is going to give you one set of huggies, and then Daddy will give you one set of huggies, okay?"  Lord, Child, the night is half gone by the time we usually make it out of your room, I silently added.

     "Yes," Clara replied.

     "Can you look at me and say, 'Okay, Mom?'"

     "O-Tay, Mom." (Flipping through the first few pages of Fox in Socks with a plump toddler digit).

     "And then Mom will put your blankets on and stroke your hair one time, and Dad will stroke your hair one time.  And then we will give you kisses one time before we shut off the lights and close the door, okay?  Can you say, 'Okay, Mom'?" Last night I fell asleep and started drooling on your crib railing while stroking your hair for the twentieth time.  

    "O-Tay, Mom," Clara said, glancing up and grinning.  I suddenly found myself faintly unbearable, a pedantic teacher curbing free will and extracting false promises.  Maybe it would work, though.     

     We finished the book.  I maneuvered her Dora the Explorer toothbrush around her teeth while she hindered my progress by attempting to suck all the Thomas the Train toothpaste off the toothbrush's bristles. 

     We put her in her crib and covered her with all thirteen of her blankets, a procedure she has lately insisted upon and that usually turns her into a little sweat-ball. 

     "Are you sure you want all these blankets?" I asked.

     "Yes," she said firmly.

     I stroked her hair once and gave her one set of kisses.  As I straightened to leave, she said, urgently, "One more strokes, awright?"

     "Hey, we said one, remember!  You agreed," I pointed out.

     "Yes. Just one more strokes peese.  Just one more.  Awright.  Thanku."  Her tone, professional and crisp, both anticipated and curtailed any protests. She was an executive skilled at pulling extra work from slacker employees.

     "Alright, but this is the last one," I said.

     Ten minutes later, after several protracted rounds of hair-stroking and kiss-blowing, I finally gave up and left, turning off the light behind me.  

     I caught a glimpse of her just before I softly closed the door.  Her face was suffused with rage. Her fists clenched the top rail of her crib as her remarkably athletic toddler thighs pumped up and down.  (When she grows a little older, she will realize that she can easily catapult herself over the rail, a high jumper in a pink, Cinderella-embellished Pull-up.)  

     Simon and I sat on the couch downstairs awhile and listened.  

    THUNK! came from her room, syncopated with a shriek.

    I raised my eyebrows at Simon.

   "Her sippy cup," he said.

   "Ah, yes.  Probably hit the dresser on its downward trajectory."

   CA-LUNK, LUNK, LUNK.

   "Books, maybe?" Simon said.

   "How?"

   "I don't know.  Maybe she can reach the bookshelf beside her crib."

   A few minutes passed.  Her screams had lessened in intensity, and I could hear thick dregs of exhaustion in her voice, yet she refused to sleep.  When I finally went back into her room, I could see why.  She had hurled all her blankets and pillow onto the floor and stood shivering in her thin jammies in the corner of her crib.

    She lay wordlessly down and I put all her blankets back on, one by one.  Her curly head looked extra small protruding from the mountain of covers.  Her enormous eyes searched my face as I murmured comfort. She pointed in mute misery to her hair.  

    "Strokes," she finally muttered.  I stroked her hair.

    She pointed to her mouth.  I gave her some more kisses.

    It turned out to be a mercifully short hair-stroking and kiss-blowing session.  Yet even still I found myself lingering, tucking tear-soaked curls behind her ears and rubbing her back.  Her eyes drowsed. 

     "Yeave, Mommy," she finally whispered.

     I left her room, and the night was at last silent.