THE SONIC BOOMER
As I noted last week, my daughter went to a wedding out-of-town and foolishly left her children in my care for an entire weekend.
Following a day of candy, toy weaponry, non-vegetarian meals and endless games of chase, it was bedtime, a ritual interrupted by the absence of mommy, and feared by children and grandparents alike.
The children have one mission: to avoid sleep. And the grandparents have the opposing mission: to please, oh heaven, please help me get these children to sleep, or tomorrow is going to be a total nightmare.
In the beginning, things went well.
Bath time was fun because grandma doesn’t have bath toys. Instead, she has kitchen utensils, pots, pans, pitchers and basically whatever the kids want to ravage from the kitchen cabinets. (Well, the cheese grater was over the line and had to be put back, but that was it.)
Bedtime was fun, too, because grandma doesn’t want anyone falling out of bed onto their head, so she bought sleeping bags shamelessly emblazoned with Spider-Man and those Frozen princesses. These are ceremoniously spread out on the floor of the guest bedroom, and the kids climb in eagerly. Grandma kisses their little heads and leaves the hall light on and pads softly away.
The next thing she hears is the sound of nylon sleeping bags quickly being scooted up to the door and, when she looks into the hallway, both bodies are wedged in the doorway and both heads are on the hard floor of the hall.
So grandma goes back in there and slides everybody back onto the carpet, and it is then that the adorable little cherubs announce that they want to sleep on the bed. In response to her admonitions, they vehemently promise not to fall on their heads, so grandma tucks them in and says goodnight, but not before pulling a series of chairs up to the edges of the bed to form a makeshift railing.
Soon the children are softly snoring and grandma congratulates herself, briefly, before barely falling asleep because she intends to keep one eye open all night.
About 2 a.m., grandma imagines she hears crying and bolts out of bed, but pauses at her doorway because now she hears nothing. Rather than break the spell, she goes back to bed but, five minutes later, definitely hears crying.
It’s Tess!
Grandma runs into the bedroom, her eyes trying to focus in the dim light (no sense waking the other one) and half the bed is empty. Where’s the two-year-old?
Oh! Wedged between the desk and the bed frame, a distance of about five inches, is Tess. She’s standing up, crying in her sleep. Grandma reaches over the assemblage of chairs, pulls her straight up and puts her back down on the bed, where she instantly relaxes into snores.
One five-inch gap in the plan, and that kid found it. She spun and twisted and pirouetted across an entire mattress, three blankets, four pillows and a brother, but she found it.
At least she kept her promise: she did not fall on her head.
