5:30 AM, Saturday Morning.
The world is quiet. I’m blissfully asleep. I’m in that beautiful, deep-sleep state where my mind and soul can roam around their own respective dream worlds, free from each other’s miserable company that they have to tolerate all day. My mind is busy driving a souped up monster truck across a F1 track. My soul is sitting at the window of a train looking out across the beautiful Swedish summer landscape.
5:31 AM
A small pitter-patter sound is poking its way, trying to forcefully insert itself into my untethered sleep. My dreamy self starts to notice the sound, like a gazelle jolted into an alert position. The sound is definitely getting louder as it approaches. The gazelle is now standing tall, wide alert, looking for the predator in the savannah. As the sound grows more distinct, my confused, half asleep brain is trying desperately to identify it.
Clip-clop-clip-clop.
Something is rhythmically striking the floor. Drums? No, that’s not it. It’s moving across the house, gaining speed as it approaches. It’s feet. Something is walking - no, running - towards me. My mind is desperately trying to assemble its alertness, as the deadly predator prepares to pounce.
And just like that, it bursts into the room, flinging our bedroom door wide open. It forces its way in and the predator lets out a deafening roar that jots the wife and me awake.
“TOYS!!!”, the predator screams.
My mind has been ejected from the monster truck, and my soul has had its train cancelled. I fall through all the levels of sleep and crash into consciousness. As my eyes open, I can see that the wife has similarly been shocked into reality.
“TOYS! ToooYS! TooooOOOOOOOYSSSSSS!!!” Comes the second screech. Dazed and confused I sit up on the bed, making eye contact with this intruding predator.
A tiny human stands at the foot of the bed as the wife and I try to stare it down. Our 18 month old daughter smiles back at us. She’s pointing at the room next door which houses all of her toys. “TOYS!” she reiterates.
Normal human time means nothing to this little creature, as it is driven by its own independent agenda. And its current, singular agenda is to play with her toys at 5:30 in the morning.
“Pumpkin, go back to sleep, please. Let mamma and daddy sleep!”, the wife pleads with the kid. Her tone is not convincing - The wife knows that she cannot win this negotiation, her “A” grade in “Negotiation Tactics” class at business school not withstanding. That’s the problem with business school. They don’t teach you how to negotiate with hyperactive toddlers, which is the life skill that actually matters.
“NO”, the daughter says emphatically. “TOYS!” she demands, pointing to her room next door.
The wife and I look at each other. We both know this is not a situation we can win. We sigh. We fondly remember the days when we used to sleep in on Saturdays. Those days seem so far away. It’s just a faded memory now.
“OK, ok. Fine.” the wife says, as she gets out of the bed.
Our current mood: Wife - Resigned acceptance of present circumstances. Daughter - happy anticipation of upcoming events. Me - Nostalgic/Mournful for the good old days.
The wife looks at our daughter and says “We’ve got to brush our teeth first!”.
The daughter’s face turns into a blank stare. “What?” she says.
Despite brushing her teeth being the ritual every single day since her tiny teeth poked out of her mouth almost a year ago, our daughter seems to forget, conveniently, every morning, that she has to brush her teeth. I think her 18-month-old’s logic is as follows: If I pretend like I don’t know what brushing teeth is, I won’t have to brush my teeth. Not a bad plan, as far as 18-month-olds go, but it has yet to work.
The wife picks up our daughter and leads her to the bathroom. “Come on” the wife signals to me, as I get up and make my way to the bathroom. The wife hands me our daughter, who has now moved on to phase two of her morning teeth-brushing ritual, “resistance”. “No, No No No NO NONO NOOOOO” the daughter yells, as the wife lays out 5 kids toothbrushes on the bathroom counter.
I feel like I have to explain what is happening here as some of you may wondering about why there are 5 toothbrushes.
You see, ever since our daughter realized that she can use her hands as offensive weapons, we’ve had to improvise some battlefield tactics to keep things under control. One strategy we’ve found that works quite well is that if we keep her hands occupied, she won’t use them to scratch our faces. Hence, 2 of the 5 toothbrushes are for her to hold in each hand. She’ll be distracted by them long enough for us to brush her teeth. The wife has the next 2 toothbrushes, one in each of her hands, as I turn around our daughter and hold her up facing outwards, towards the wife. These two toothbrushes are designated primary and secondary, reasons for which will become clear momentarily. The 5th toothbrush is for me to hold in my free hand, reasons for which, again, will become clear momentarily.
And so we start.
The daughter holds a toothbrush in each hand, prepared to do battle with oncoming toothbrushes. The wife takes her primary toothbrush and shoves it into the daughters mouth. She resists, trying to use her two toothbrushes to deflect. She’s not very successful doing that, so the daughter moves on to her next strategy.
If you’re going to brush my teeth, I’M GOING TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH.
The daughter uses her left toothbrush to try and force it into the wife’s mouth. The wife is agile enough to step to a side to avoid the oncoming toothbrush, and uses this opportunity to bring her backup toothbrush right up to the daughter mouth, because she knows the daughter is going to spit out the primary toothbrush. Just as she does that, the wife forces in the backup toothbrush to take its place, like a well prepared soldier standing up in place of its fallen comrade. The overall scene is quite confusing, with the daughter flailing around all these toothbrushes like some multi-armed Indian goddess doing battle with forces of evil.
As the battle continues, there are many screams and cries, some toothbrushes flung out in frustration, while the others briefly make it into our daughters mouth but are ejected sooner or later. I use the secret 5th toothbrush to brush her teeth during the breaks when she opens her mouth to breathe and reload her lungs for the next blood-curdling scream. After the longest minute of the day passes, the toothbrushes as a team have collectively brushed at least 80% of her tiny teeth, which is our acceptable threshold for “brush daughter’s teeth every morning”.
Done. Parenting task achieved.
The wife tries to wipe her face, but the daughter is now kicking (in addition to the on going screaming) as well as throwing her arms around. The day is not far off when we’ll have to tape two toothbrushes to her feet as well. I finally put her down outside the bathroom while the wife collects all the toothbrushes that have been scattered across the bathroom, like fallen warriors spewn across a bloody battlefield.
I’m leaning against the wall with my hand, trying to catch up on my breath. The wife is surveying damage. Nothing broken today. That’s a good sign.
The daughter is back on her feet on the ground. Two seconds later, she’s back to her happy self. She looks to the left, then to the right, trying to identify and lock in on the next target of her singular attention.
“Swing!” she yells, as she dashes off towards the backyard.
It’s 5:45 AM. Our day is just getting started.
