Alexandria Faulkenbury
In My Toddler’s Room
In my toddler’s room, the internet stalls and sputters and gives up halfway through loading a page on my phone. I drop it into my lap in frustration. The darkness envelopes its illuminated screen, and I can no longer see it even though I still feel its warmth on my thighs. I stare at the wall where bursts of light dart across the dark space like a kaleidoscope.
It is bedtime. Nay, it is well past bedtime. And I am trapped.
Any parent who missed the memo on how to lay your child down “drowsy but awake” and now must endure the merciless prison of sitting in a small human’s room until they are fully unconscious will understand my dilemma.
The faulty internet isn’t actually the problem. In here, even the smallest hint of light elicits desperate cries of, “No light! Light off! Sleepy time!” This last phrase uttered while my toddler attempts to tap dance along the rails of his bed.
Wireless headphones, you say? Have you ever tried listening to music while simultaneously singing to a toddler? It all becomes Baby Beluga in the end. And don’t get me started on audiobooks or podcasts. The pauses required to procure a drink of water or tuck in an untucked blanket or fetch the stuffed dinosaur who was, not two minutes ago, hurled across the room because he wasn’t the stuffed bear? Forget it.
So, I keep singing in a voice only a child could love. Meanwhile, my back hurts from the odd angle I’m slouched in to enable me to hold his hand, rub his back, or pat his head as requested. As the sound of a fake ocean blares on, I make a mental list of all the things I’ll accomplish when he is finally asleep and I can tiptoe across the room, careful to avoid that one squeaky floorboard, and make my escape. It’s so close I can almost taste it. He hasn’t asked me to sing a new song for a good five minutes. His blanket rises and falls in that steady sleepy rhythm.
But then.
A cough. A roll over. I hold my breath.
“You lay down with me, mamma?” Ah, the bitter taste of defeat.
I squeeze myself into the sliver of space between him and the mountain of stuffed animals that have now taken up residence on the mattress, and something strange happens. My pulse slows and the tension in my shoulders melts into the elephant pillow wedged behind my back. Is it me or does the whoosh of the sound machine seem a little quieter from down here?
My toddler puts his hand in mine and snuggles right up against my chest. He smells of a day’s worth of picking dandelions, finger painting, and rubbing peanut butter and jelly in his hair. The little furnace of his body warms me when I didn’t realize I was cold. There’s a calm in my bones that I can’t place, though I’ve felt it before.
And then, all at once, he’s asleep with his tiny hand in mine and his wispy hair tickling my nose. I slide slowly off the bed and tuck the blanket around his feet, which still rest against one of the bed rails, just in case he gets the urge for another round of tap dancing before I go.
Alexandria Faulkenbury’s writing has been published in The Maine Review and HeartWood Literary Magazine, among others. She holds an M.A. in literature and lives in central New York with her husband, two rambunctious kids, and one ornery dog. More of her work can be found at alexandriafaulkenbury.com