How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane (33 page)

“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

W
e 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.