Tonight I Forgot

At bedtime, I usually tell a story to the kids after we turn the lights out.  Sometimes I make the stories up myself as I go, and then the stories are fairly lame.  Other times, I tell the kids a story from the Grimms or some other wonderful source of stories handed down for hundreds of years, and then the stories are much, much better and more fun for me to tell.

As an antidote to the pretty, passive princesses my daughter has grown enamored of, I've tried to dig out some good, strong heroines from the old stories.  One of our greatest hits in this vein is a Russian story called "Vasilisa the Wise," about a clever, generous, athletic young woman who dresses up as a Tartar emissary in order to trick a king and save her imprisoned brother.  A fabulous and highly recommended story--it can be found in an anthology called "The Best of Girls to the Rescue" edited by Bruce Lansky.  Another goodie is one called "Tatterhood," which you can find in the wonderful parenting book "Everyday Blessings" by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Anyway.  About tonight and what I forgot.  Lately, we've been getting to bed later and later--I don't know if it's daylight savings time still throwing us off or what--and I've been grouchy and tired by the time the lights are out.  The kids have often been objecting to whatever story I say I want to tell:  "No!  That one's too scary!" or "No, I want a new story, not one you already told," and so on.  Or one kid wants one story, and another's arguing for another.  Tonight, I wanted to tell a new story called "The Blue Bottle."  My daughter and son wanted "The King's Son Goes Bear Hunting."  To make a long story short, I tried to tell "The King's Son Goes Bear Hunting," but after a few sentences in an angry monotone, I said, "You know what?  I just can't tell a story tonight.  I'm too tired and mad, and I don't want to try to tell a story when I'm mad."

My son cried, he was so disappointed.  I started going off on an eloquent guilt trip about how hard it is to tell a story when it's this late and we've spent so much energy arguing about what story to tell, blah blah blah.  I felt so irritated, so ready to just go be by myself with a good book and maybe a glass of wine.

"I'm sorry you're feeling bad, Mama," my son said quietly and stroked my arm.  

Eventually I calmed down, and I ended up snuggling with the kids until my daughter fell asleep and my son was almost asleep.  I spooned up against him and put my arm around him, and I was struck by how long he's growing, how his baby fat has melted away and left this lean, stringy-muscled young boy.  Beside me on the futon, he started twitching and shifting, the way you do when you're just about to drift off, and I thought, how many more years will he let me lie like this with him as he falls asleep, so close, so intimate?  

It's such a strange, poignant thing--usually when you fall in love, you hope the person you love will stick around.  But as a parent, what you're hoping for is that you raise your child to be strong enough so that they will leave.

If all goes well, my children are going to leave.  Why can't I remember this more often?  Why can't I cherish them more while they are here and stop letting the little irritants get in the way? 

As a wise woman named Katharine once said to me years ago when I was feeling especially stressed out about life with small children, "Time for some self-care, woman."  

Well, it's the weekend, and my husband and I have a babysitter lined up so we can go on a date tomorrow, so that's good.  Here's hoping I make time for some self-care, too--maybe a lap swim at the Y, a long walk by myself, time to write uninterrupted.  Something to fill my cup again, so I can remember not to forget.