I thought about this all day yesterday:
That I'm weirdly thankful for this little blight we've been experiencing.
Because, just as in the cases of so many other ever-evolving day-in-day-out non-events, I can't remember the Last Time. In this case, I was wracking my brain trying to remember (re-see, re-feel) the last time I washed Aliza's hair for her. And I couldn't remember. Because those lasts go out not with a bang but a whimper.
 |
| the Last of the sippy cups (most recently used as bedside water bottles) went to the Goodwill over the Winter Break... |
At some point Aliza was able to dump a bucket of water over her own head. A bit later she was able to swim, and understood not to stand in the tub, and was safe to play (with the door open) in the tub alone. My quick trips out of the bathroom to fetch pajamas and turn down beds, became full-on dinner-dish-washing sessions while she played in the tub or Ander read to her. At some point she switched to showers (when???), and was able to dry herself, get her pajamas on, and brush her own teeth. Alexander of course had been doing all this on his own for a while (when did that start???). I was able to finish the dishes before their bedtimes, and even put a load of wash in, or (more likely) check my e-mail before heading off to read stories.
Now and then, when she needs a little pampering (okay, babying) after a trying day, she will ask me to come in and wrap her in a towel, pat her dry, rub lotion into her arms and legs, comb her hair, put it in a towel-turban.
But for the most part I have oh-so-gradually been subtracted from the bathtime-to-bedtime equation.
And I didn't even notice the Last Time when it whimpered into oblivion.
So this past week, despite all the ick and the sore scalps and the endless laundry and the upholstery-cleaning and the car-detailing, I have tried to appreciate the Gift of the Comb-Out.
This past week I have been added back into the equation.*
I get to massage their heads with organic-homeopathic-herbal concoctions. I get to sculpt silly soapy hairdos: a giant Cindy Lou Who vertical spout for her, two owl-like horns for him. I get to rinse and comb and rinse some more, running my hands over the once-visible topography of their scalps, and the whole time we're sitting in our happy-tiled bathroom with the space-heater blasting, and Aliza is asking me to tell her stories about each place I lived growing up.
I am with them, so close, in a peppermint-scented, terry-cloth-wrapped, green-tiled time machine. I have stolen time. I have received a do-over, or at least a do-again.
I tried to explain this to Alexander last night -- how grateful I am for this inconvenience. And I told him about a time when Aliza was maybe a week or two old, and Dubbadad and I were riding in an elevator at the hospital, me carrying Aliza in my arms, the three of us on the way to her first check-up. We were probably chatting about her belly button stump or cradle cap or something. The elevator stopped at a floor below our destination, and another two parents and a child got in. It was hard to tell if the child was a boy or girl, and he or she could have been five or could have been ten. I felt that she was a girl. I think she was bald, but I'm not certain now. But I do remember that she was tiny, and wearing a yellow hospital gown, and that she was pushing her own I.V. stand, and that she walked like every step hurt, and that her parents looked so tired and maybe also a little furious with the world. Dubbadad and I made room for them in the elevator, moving closer to each other and to Aliza, and we all stood in silence until we got off at our floor. I'm pretty sure I was crying by the time we got to the door of our pediatrician's office. Cradle cap, really?
Lice, really? I said to Alexander, and he held my hand, and understood.
* (For twelve-to-fourteen days anyway, depending on where we are in the life-cycle of the Cursed Louse.)
0 comments:
Post a Comment