Sylvia comes into my room in the morning on silent feet; the cat who slinks in through the opened door wakes me before she does. She says nothing, just grips the mattress in two fists and pulls herself up next to me. This morning it was four. Usually at that hour I would rise groggily and escort her to the bathroom and back to bed, worried that, sandwiched between her body and Don’s, I will not sleep, or that the six o’clock alarm will shortchange her precious rest.
But Don is away on a conference, so there is no alarm, and the bed is mostly empty, so I move over to make room for her and pull the comforter up over her compact, fleece-clad form. With surprise I realize that, rather than my usual annoyance at the night waking, today I feel grateful for this warmth, this closeness. Sylvia says nothing, just reaches out to rest her foot against my leg. I feel her soft hand brush against my cheek, and then her breathing deepens and she is asleep.
Sylvia, in daytime hours, rarely wants to cuddle. She does not want to be hugged, or kissed, or carried. Oppositional to her very core, she responds to each gesture of affection with defiance: “Don’t kiss me!” “No, you DON’T love me!”, “I am NOT a good girl!” She can whip me into a rage with her stubbornness. Hair brushings, trips to the potty, carseat bucklings-- all become battlegrounds for our war of wills, leaving her crying angry tears and me growling with frustration. Last week she shrieked and wailed for half an hour because I dared to help her with her backpack as the car line for preschool pick-up stretched behind us.
At times like those, I resent how hard she makes it. Already I’ve become spoiled with the general ease of parenting now. I try to turn a deaf ear to her tantrums, but her screeching stresses me out and irritates me with its pointlessness.
“I guess she’s living up to the threatening threes,” Don says, and he’s right. I remember-- vaguely-- how infuriating Clayton could be at this age. Oh, wow, you really have your hands full, people would say when they saw the twins, but I’d insist they were easier together than my three-year-old son was alone.
Recently, after a weekend afternoon spent with the kids, Don commented, “It’s really amazing how they can totally infuriate you one minute and fill you with overwhelming love the next.”
As always, he nailed it. That’s why even though I pull my hair out in frustration multiple times a day, these days I feel suffused with a pervasive gratitude for this time with my children. And it is so hard to hold! Even the unforgettable moments that make me grit my teeth with their sweetness slip by and are forgotten. I look at pictures from mere months ago and think, “But that is not who they are now!” I watch mommies in cafes with their infants strapped to their backs, remember, and yet find it impossible to remember.
These words, I suppose, are my best bulwark against the inevitable forgetting. And yet I suspect that as heartbreaking as it can feel now, I will not always grieve their growing. When Clayton sets up his stuffed bear squad in bed to read them stories, or swaddles Pooh in an infant blanket so he can play “baby doll” with his sisters, my heart aches with the little boy sweetness of it, and the shift that will surely one day come. And yet, I feel so much pride at how he grows: the easy, ripped-jeaned style of him, the carefully-printed letters of his name, his new and unexpected worldliness.
As parents, it is what saves us, that there is no losing without gaining, that each forgotten moment makes room for what comes next, each fleeting stage a prelude for what our children will become.
Three days have passed since I wrote this; already I do not remember the cute, unforgettable things I wanted to get down so that I would not forget! But there are these:
A week ago, Sylvia stood by the refrigerator in her pajamas, erupting with vomit. Clayton and I heard the splatter and abandoned the bedtime story we were reading in his room. He looked at his sister, puke still streaming from her mouth and through her fingers, and burst into tears.
“What’s the matter, Clayton?” I asked him. “Are you afraid you’re going to get sick?” (This was my fear, after all.)
“No!” he said through his sobs. “I just love Sylvia!”
Healthy again, Clayton and Dee Dee want to put on a song and dance show for me.
“Boy ballerinas are just called dancers,” he clarifies to his sister before they begin. Then they turn off the lights in the kitchen and direct me to take my seat. Dee Dee sprints to her room to turn on her dance music CD and returns to stand side-by-side with her brother in the dark.
Clayton, suddenly self-conscious, says, “Actually, I’m sort of shy to sing by myself.” He nudges Dee Dee with his elbow. “Sing, Dee Dee! Sing!” he tells her. She doesn't know the words-- it’s the Macarena, after all, and who does?-- but she tries her best. Then the beat gets the best of them and they’re dancing, Clayton hurling himself into wild spins on the tile, and Dee Dee doing her best ballerina leaps. Sylvia stops communing with the dog to join in; she likes twirling around until the room spins around her.
I am grinning so big my cheeks hurt. They smile back at me; they always seem so overjoyed to see me happy.
“Why are you smiling?” they ask me, even though they know already.
But there is no answer big enough.
It has become obvious to me that so many of the moments I find most endearing involve my children being sweet or tender or playful with each other. I suspect that most parents feel this way. There is something almost primal about it, that surge of satisfaction I feel when the clan is momentarily united.
It happens most notably when we are in the car, their three car seats wedged together in the back of the Prius. The other day, on the way to a preschool class we all attend together, they played what can only be described as “Clayton Says.”
“Take a nap!” Clayton would command, and all three would tilt their heads and squint their eyes closed.
“Now wake up!” Eyes pop open. Sylvia pops open her fingers, too, just for effect, and we all laugh.
“Now look out the window! Now take a nap. Now wake up!”
I can’t help giggling as I watch them in the rear-view mirror.
“What?” Clayton wants to know. He knows when I approve but likes to hear it just the same.
“You guys are funny, that’s all,” I say. But, really, the feeling is so much bigger than that: my immense love for them and my intense gratitude to be sharing this moment with them all rolled up in a huge ball of feeling inside me, so big I have to laugh or I’ll explode.
On the way home, Sylvia starts chanting a little made-up song, and I can sense the other two listening. I catch Clayton’s eye in the rear view mirror and we grin at each other, knowing we’re both thinking the same thing. She’s just so cute! Again, I can’t keep from letting out a little of my joy.
“Don’t laugh!” Sylvia commands. “I’m just singing a song!” But, for once, she’s not really angry. She keeps singing-- and we keep listening-- all the way home.
