How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane

by Johanna Stein

  It took some delicate wrangling—underscored by my saying no in every tone imaginable—but I was finally able to usher the child back into her own room for the night.

  The husband and I crawled back into our bed. He switched off the light, and we both went to sleep, because by that point we were both too tired, too disturbed, and frankly in denial of our sexual organs to even consider resuming our previously scheduled activities.

  Several nights later, now mostly healed from the shell shock and mortification, the husband and I endeavored to finish what we had started. This time we closed the door and were taking a no-nonsense, no-acrobatics, almost surgical approach to the finish line—when I heard a slow CLICK, looked up and again saw the kid standing in the doorway. This time she was holding an armful of dolls and giggling in that high creepy voice that, in movies, usually signals the arrival of the Antichrist.

  It was even more shocking the second time around—it was as though she had developed some sort of perv-y sixth sense that, coupled with her then four-year-old fighting weight (which meant she was not quite heavy enough to make the floors creak), allowed her to simply materialize like the sex-murdering specter that she was.

  One week later we installed a lock on the door. It seemed a perfect solution, and it was, in that it effectively kept her out of eyeball’s reach. But it also prompted her to sit outside our door and wail—and FYI, it is darn near impossible to achieve any sense of “closure” when someone is pounding their tiny fists on your bedroom door and yelling, “NO BOUNCE! NO BOUNCE!”

  Concerned that, were we to allow this coitus interruptus unbefuckinglievabus to continue, the husband would suffer from permanent blue ballage, we decided that the time had come for a conversation about boundaries and privacy. I would take the lead, and he would stand by to add color commentary on an as-needed basis.

  We planned to keep it simple and unemotional, and just like the parenting books tell you to do when embarking on a sensitive conversation, we would answer her questions but wouldn’t go into any more detail than necessary.

  I unlatched the door and picked up the teary-eyed little party crasher.

  “I WANNA BOUNCE ON YOUR BED.”

  “It’s nighttime. Everyone is going to sleep.”

  I carried her into her room and tucked her in. The husband stood at the doorway while I sat on the edge of the bed and started. “When Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom door is closed, that means they are having special time together and they need their privacy.”

  “BUT THAT MAKES ME SAD.” Her lower lip folded into a floppy pout.

  “I know. But part of being a big girl is understanding that sometimes people need their privacy.”

  She stuck her thumb in her mouth and was quiet for a moment. Then:

  “MOMMA?”

  “Yes?”

  “WHY DO YOU PUT THAT LONG THING IN YOUR BUM?”

  Now it was my turn to be quiet for a moment.

  “What?”

  “THAT LONG THING IN YOUR PURSE THAT FELL OUT AT THE BANK.”

  I quickly ascertained that she was referring to a tampon; those things leap out of my purse in public on a biweekly basis. (The husband clearly had not yet ascertained what she was referring to, as he was staring at me from the doorway, mouthing the words, “WHAT THE FUHHH?!”)

  “That’s called a tampon. And I don’t put it in my bum.”

  Thumb in mouth. Another pause.

  “MOMMA?”

  “Yes?”

  “WHAT IS A SPECIAL HUG?”

  Er. That was not a phrase she’d heard from us.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I DUNNO. I JUST KNOW IT.”

  Sure you do. “Did Rebecca tell you that word?”

  She shrugged and stuck her thumb back in her mouth, then pulled it out to ask:

  “IS THE LONG THING FOR WHEN YOU’RE SPECIAL HUGGING?”

  “Let’s get back to the first thing we were talking about. Did you understand what I said about privacy?”

  She shrugged, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and stared at me.

  This was not going as I’d hoped. We were entering I’m-not-even-close-to-being-ready-for-this-talk territory.

  I looked to the husband for moral support. I couldn’t see his face, as it was in his hands. All I could see were his shoulders, quaking. He was either laughing hysterically or crying uncontrollably, either of which would have been understandable—but totally unacceptable—in that moment.

  Then I had a brainstorm—a flash of a tactic that had worked for us in the past. Songs! She responded very well to music. When washing her hands caused her to wail as though they were being dipped in battery acid, I came up with the “Hands Washing Song.” When potty training was going so slowly it seemed she would be wearing Cinderella diapers at her wedding, I improvised the “Peepee on the Potty Song.”

  Example:

  Today I made a pee-pee on the potteeee

  Today I made a pee-pee on the potteeee

  Today I made a pee-pee on the potteeee

  And now I get a stick-er! Bing Bong!

  (I never said I was Elton John—my point is that my songs did the trick.)

  “I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s sing the ‘Privacy Song.’”

  “WHAT’S THAT?”

  I improvised a jaunty little tune—and I don’t mean to brag, but improvising songs for four-year-olds in the middle of the night, this is where I really shine.

  It’s the privacy song!

  It’s the privacy song!

  Asking for privacy is never wrong

  It’s the pri-va-cy sooooong!

  We sang it a few times until I was sure she had it.

  “So what does it mean when Mommy and Daddy’s door is closed?”

  “PRIVACY,” she said.

  “Right. Any more questions?”

  She shook her head, gave me a sleepy smile, then stuck her thumb in her mouth and rolled over.

  And I must say, feeling awash with pride as I was, I may have strutted out of her bedroom—and yes, as I passed the husband, I may have even leaned in for a high-five. I didn’t get the high-five return—but the spirit of celebration was with us approximately twenty minutes later when we climbed back in the saddle, finally closing the deal that we had embarked upon, lo, those many days ago.

  We were both rounding the corner to home plate when we heard the unmistakable sound of our doorknob being rattled. We both paused and waited for the rattling to stop—which it did, only to be followed by another sound, that of a tiny voice whispering outside the door:

  “YOU’RE HAVING PRIVACY.”

  And then, as I suppose I really should have predicted, the little specter laid down, pressed her lips up to the crack between the floor and our door, and proceeded to serenade us:

  IT’S THE PRIVACY SONG,

  IT’S THE PRIVACY SONG,

  IT’S THE PRIVACY SONG . . .

  *And if you don’t know what I mean, I’m not implying that we have a sex dungeon in our basement. Just that we still get it on.

  *Particularly if dear reader is my husband. Or my in-laws.

  *As I had been when I was a child (please see Chapter 4).

  twenty-two

  THE FIRST EMERGENCY ROOM VISIT

  We are at a children’s birthday party at the neighborhood community center, watching eighteen sugar-fueled preschoolers chase soccer balls around a brick-walled gym.

  My husband and I are standing at the sidelines of this hilariously clumsy spectacle, gorging ourselves on tiny boxes of cranberry juice and postage-stamp-size cold pizza, and placing bets on which one of the kids will be the next to fall down. (I realize that may sound twisted, but we’ve logged enough afternoons at these big group birthday-party snooze fests that we’ve learned to create our own entertainment.)

  I sprinkle a package of parmesan cheese into my mouth and then whisper to my husband, “How long before one of those uncoordinated four-year-olds takes a header into the brick wall?” And just
as this thought is crossing my cheese-slowed synapses and finding its way out of my cranberry juice–stained mouth . . . our uncoordinated four-year-old takes a header into the brick wall.

  Let me just say this: I’m a huge fan of physical comedy, so it’s not entirely my fault that when she bounced off the wall, I almost laughed out loud.* † Of course when I saw the red stuff coming out of her head, the laugh urge disappeared entirely and was replaced by horror, guilt, and fear.

  The husband—the guy I usually tease for being an outrageous overreactor‡ —is in this instance reacting entirely appropriately, because before I can even register the fact that she has, in fact, run face-first into a jagged piece of metal hanging off the window frame, he has sprinted to her and is cradling her in his arms.§

  I sprint toward them, praying to every god I’ve ever heard of, God, Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Vishnu, Zeus: Please, please, let it not be terrible. Please, please, please, don’t let this be that moment, the moment that everything changes. I’ll stop being a clueless asshole, I swear to every single one of you.

  The husband—whose shirt is now spattered with her blood—holds our whimpering daughter in his arms, and we both get a good look at the wound.

  It’s a small cut on her forehead, just above the eyebrow. Thankfully, it isn’t terrible—it seems that this day will not be one of “those” days. We have been spared a life-changing catastrophe. Thanks, gods, I owe every single one of you, and henceforth will stop being a clueless asshole.*

  Another parent hands us some napkins to help clean up the blood, as well as wipe away the child’s tears, which are subsiding. Now that the initial shock has worn off, I take another look at the wound.

  Here is where I need to tell you that when I was in college I was planning to be a doctor. I had taken all of my pre-med requirements in college, and becoming an MD was pretty much my fallback plan right up until the point that I decided to take the much more lucrative and practical route of becoming a professional mime.† Regardless, as a barely trained almost-doctor, this minor medical emergency is pretty much in my wheelhouse.

  Analyzing the wound with what little knowledge I can recall from Intro to Basic Human Biology, Course #3825, I note that it appears to be quite deep. The kind of deep where you are suddenly reminded that humans are not so different from chickens, at least when it comes down to what our meat looks like underneath our skin. When the cut does not stop bleeding, the husband suggests that we take her to the hospital because she may need stitches. Yup. Couldn’t agree more. He suggests I pull the car around so that he can carry her out. Again, capital idea. I grab my keys and take a step for the door—or, rather, I tell my leg to take a step, but it defies my instructions, deciding that, thanks anyway, but it would prefer to buckle and lay down on the floor instead. And then the other leg joins its sister in quiet solidarity.

  The husband looks down at me. “You okay?”

  I look up at him from the floor. “Me? Yes, I’m fine. I’m going to get the car now.” I try to stand, but this time it’s my eyeballs that aren’t up for cooperating—apparently, they have plans to cross and meet somewhere over my nose.

  “I might just need a minute,” I say.

  The mother of the birthday boy asks how she can help—she’s upset and feels terrible about what has happened, so I try my best to appear calm and collected, as though laying cross-eyed on the cigarette-burned carpeted floor of a Chicago community center is the way in which a calm and collected almost-doctor reacts in a medical emergency.

  She takes my keys and leaves to get the car, while the husband focuses on holding the bloody child, and I focus on holding the swirling cranberry juice and pizza in my stomach.

  The husband drives while I (still unable to conjure a vertical position) lay in the back next to the kid in her car seat. Determined to be at least the tiniest bit helpful, I strain to hold a bunch of balled-up napkins to my daughter’s forehead while she happily eats her cake and bleeds.

  Laying there in the backseat, watching the tops of the trees as they fly past the car window, I am dumbfounded. Not only did I once intend to become a doctor, but I have always prided myself on my ability to remain calm in crisis. I once dated a guy who nicknamed me “Clutch” for just that reason. Sure, he was a Civil War reenactor who thought he was psychic and could channel fallen Union soldiers—but still, even he could see that I was brave, strong, and dependable. How will I achieve my fantasy of a late-in-life career change and become a doctor at age sixty-three if this is how I react to a little flesh wound?

  We enter the emergency room area, my daughter now covered in blood, cake, and icing, but otherwise in pretty good spirits. Her dad thinks this is a great time to tease me and asks if I need a wheelchair. Ha ha ha.

  One wheelchair later, we roll into the examination room.

  A nurse comes in and asks my daughter to lie down on the examination table so she can prep her for stitches. At the mere mention of the word stitches, I feel the pull of my eyes crossing, so I lie down right next to the kid. The kid laughs. “MAMA, WHY ARE YOU LYING DOWN? YOU’RE NOT GETTING STITCHES.” I tell my unflappable little girl that I just want to be near her and leave out the part about me being a flappably flappy, almost-fainting mess.

  In walks the on-duty doctor, and even from my nauseous, sideways vantage point, I can see how attractive he is, like he’s just stepped off the set of That Show With All The Hot Doctors. I’m almost outraged at how good-looking he is, with his perfect dreadlocks and perfect skin and perfect teeth that are so perfectly aligned and bright when he smiles I swear to God I can hear them sparkle. I look over at the four-year-old—she is enthralled; apparently, she can hear his teeth sparkle too. I glance at the husband; there’s no mistaking his reaction—he too is agog, mouth hanging just a tiny bit open.* †

  Dr. Perfect pulls a chair up to the examination table. “So I heard there’s a soccer star in here. Which one of you is it?” The kid giggles and tells him, “ME. I EVEN SCORED A GOAL!”

  “That’s awesome. Fist pound!” They exchange a bonding fist-pound explosion, and then he leans over to give her forehead a close look. “Wait a minute . . . It looks like . . . Why is there icing all over your face? Are you so sweet that you have icing in your blood?” She giggles some more. This guy is good. If he really is on a TV show—and I don’t see how he can’t be—I am going to have to start recording it immediately.

  The husband comes over to watch as the doctor examines the cut, manipulating it, causing it to open and close like a tiny, toothless mouth. I want to be strong, but every time that cut opens, I want to crawl up inside my own birth canal.

  Doctor Sparkleteeth turns to me lying on the table and gives me a sympathetic look. “How are you doing? You okay?”

  “Me?” I squeak. “I’m good.” Then a nurse wheels a table of instruments over and holds up an anesthetic-filled needle. I close my eyes and blow a small stream of air through my mouth, just like I learned during that birthing class I took back in ’06.

  After he administers the anesthetic and while he is waiting for it to take effect, Dr. Wonderful looks at me with understanding (and possibly just the tiniest bit of desire—though I suppose it’s possible I was reading into it).

  “You’re doing great, Mom.”

  “I bet you see a lot of freaked-out parents come through here,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “But you gotta keep in mind, when a child gets an injury like this, there’s a serious risk of secondary injury, to the heart . . .”

  “Wait—what? . . .!”

  “The parent’s heart.” he says, his eyes boring into mine.

  Now if I’d read that in a book, I probably would have gagged. But hearing it from his full lips, I just want to bawl my eyes out in gratitude.

  “Give yourself a break,” he says. “Seeing your child in pain is one of the most upsetting and stressful events a parent can go through.” Then he leans in even closer and whispers, his minty-fresh breath like a cool breeze in my ear,
“We once had an off-duty surgeon come through here. Fainted when he saw his son’s dislocated shoulder.”

  I don’t know if it’s just a line, but I really don’t care. If I learned just one thing during my time as a never-will-be-doctor, it’s that if it works, a placebo is just as good as the real thing.

  As Dr. Smoooooth stitches up the kid, she doesn’t even cry. She just keeps on talking about soccer, birthday parties, princesses, and all of the other things that transfix a four-year-old as she gazes into the eyes of her hero.

  And whether it’s his bedside manner, his deep-brown eyes, the way he fills out his scrubs—or the fact that he has healed my wounds, too—I too make it through her stitches without fainting, crying, or vomiting. I’m even able to sit up when it comes time to say good-bye to young Dr. Mm-mm-mmm as he leaves to return to the set of That Show With All The Hot Doctors, or wherever it is that abnormally handsome young physicians go after repairing the tiny bodies of their patients and their parents’ troubled hearts.

  *Okay, I did laugh out loud.

  †I think we can all agree that the blame lies squarely at the feet of the Three Stooges, Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, and Mr. Bean.

  ‡As per Exhibit C of “The Marriage Quotient,” p. 115.

  §Necessary spoiler alert: she’s fine. But judging by the blood that was gushing/pouring from her at the time, it seemed that she would not be. Now back to the unspoiled remainder of the story.

  *To the absolute best of my ability, I swear.

  †Honestly, it really did seem like a good idea at the time.

  *In all fairness, this is a point of contention: the husband claims he was simply taken aback by how young the doctor appeared to be; I say there’s no shame in a heterosexual male having his breath taken away by a perfect specimen of manhood. Who’s to say who’s right?

  † I am.

  twenty-three

  LIES I HAVE TOLD MY DAUGHTER

  Mommy and Daddy were just hugging • I don’t know what happened to the rest of your cake. Maybe you ate it in your sleep? • That’s exactly how much Halloween candy you came home with last night. It just looks like less to you because your eyeballs grew larger overnight • Mommy was just helping Daddy find something that he dropped in his pants; now go to your room • No, Mommy has never smoked a cigarette • If you don’t brush your hair, the Haircut Fairy might come in the middle of the night, and in the morning you’ll wake up bald • Yes, every other three-year-old in the city knows how to wipe her bum by herself • No, Mommy has never tried drugs • That’s not zucchini; those are long, skinny apples • Isabella is wrong—hamburgers are not made from nice animals with long eyelashes • You hate soda. Remember that time you tried it and it made you cry? • No, Mommy has never been in trouble with the police • You misheard Grandpa—he was talking about “plucking” • I’m so sorry, but they just made gum chewing illegal in this county • I have no idea how your toy drum with the squeaky, southern singing voice that always sounds like she’s auditioning for a Nashville record producer wound up in the garbage, smashed into tiny pieces. That is weird • We can’t go to Disneyland—it’s closed this year • No, Mommy has never set a house on fire • This is not bubble gum; it’s special chewing medicine the dentist gave me for my mouth • Daddy’s lying. Mommy was never a professional mime • Yes, Zippy does look different. That must be why he was resting yesterday—he was saving his energy for a growth spurt and so he could change the colors of his fins • Mommy was choking, and so Daddy was giving Mommy something called the “Heimlich maneuver,” and no, we weren’t naked; we were just wearing invisible clothes. Now go back to sleep.