Rob gets up first, and I hear the coffee machine crunching beans, such a loud sound inside our otherwise silent house. But familiar and comforting, at the same time, and I don’t even drink coffee. We’ve been in our new home for almost a year, and it’s so quiet here, unlike any other neighborhood we’ve ever lived in. I bury one ear deeper into my pillow. I had to wake Rob up twice last night to help me roll over and get my legs into a more comfortable position. We’re tired.
Scarlett is tired. She’s been having nightmares this week, her yells the sound that punctuates the night. I know there’s wind blowing outside, I can see the trees moving, but all I hear is my daughter shouting “NO!” I want to get up and go to her, but the first issue with that is, of course, that I can’t physically get out of bed on my own. The second issue is that, after a week of Rob going in and trying to calm her down, we’ve decided to try not going in. And it works. This time, she settles quickly.
Night terrors. So, at four years old, she has things that terrorize her. I could read a lot into that, but I hear it’s pretty normal, and I have enough to worry about. Unless things get weird, we’re going to assume the nightmares come with the territory of having a child. She is still sheltered from the harsher realities of ALS, for now.
She is not, however, sheltered from the stress of pulling ourselves together in the morning. She gets up after Rob, and I can hear them talking in the kitchen. Him, encouraging her to get dressed. Her, informing him that she will only wear something sparkly. I listen for a while and then call to Rob to come get me out of bed. He hoists me up and I can see that my legs, which have never been wildly muscular, now look like unreliable toothpicks. Scarlett wants me to sing to her while she dons her sparkles. I make up a fast song, and she races to get her clothes on. Her legs are wildly muscular. Beautiful.
She picks out a green dress for me, and Rob helps me put it on. Then things devolve a little, when she asks us both to braid her hair, a skill neither of us is currently blessed with. Exasperated, she takes off into her bathroom and works on it herself. Rob needs to leave for work, and he has to drop her off at school first. I’m not very helpful in a hands-on sense, but I can cajole and threaten like anyone.
“Did you brush your teeth?” I ask the bathroom door.
“Yes!” a little voice replies, with a hint of petulant teenager.
“Good,” I say, “Because if you don’t brush your teeth, you might get cavities.”
A pause. Then the sound of tooth brushing. Easier than I expected. She comes out with a headband on.
Now Rob really needs to leave. Lights are on, clothes are all over the floor. The back of Scarlett’s hair isn’t brushed and I try to press it down with my hands. “Stop it!” She wriggles away.
They’re not out the door on time, but this was a blissful morning compared to some. And then, after they leave, I realize I have no idea if she ate breakfast. I call Rob, though there’s nothing to be done about it now. “She ate,” he says. And I sit back, enjoying a small feeling of success. Sure, my daughter has nightmares, I can’t move around on my own, and we’re all exhausted. But she’s dressed, she had breakfast, her teeth are clean, and she’s at school. We must be doing something right.
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This is a lovely entry. It brings both contentment and sorrow into my heart.
You’re doing more right than many able-bodied parents. Your daughter is lucky, lucky, lucky to have the parents she was gifted.