Calming the Crescendo

We committed the ultimate crime with our daughters last night; we put them in separate bedrooms. They started out in the same bedroom (they’ve been sleeping together for well over six months now), but Abby hadn’t had a nap yesterday, and Esther did. This meant there was a disproportionate need for sleep between the two, and Esther evidenced this by squealing and talking incessantly for over 20 minutes. We tried the warnings, you know, going in and saying, “Go to sleep, Esther. You need to settle down, or we’re going to take you out and put you in the Pack-n-Play in the den,” but warning a two-year-old of impending doom is like telling the sun not to shine because clouds are coming. Pointless.

After several varied warnings, we finally broke down and removed her from the room. This, of course, resulted in her immediate wailings, “No, Daddy! No!” But she was not the true victim, for Abby was the one lying quietly in her bed, trying hopelessly to sleep, and Abby didn’t want Esther to be removed from the room any more than Esther wanted to be. So Eric put Esther in the den and closed the door. Abby then picked up with the tears, “I want someone to sleep with me! I want someone to sleep with me!” Between the two of them, it was an overwhelming crescendo of woe. Both of us stood in the kitchen, frozen in space and time, staring at one another for several minutes, contemplating what we should do.

Then Eric lifts his hands in mock-conductor form and pretends he’s leading the sad choir in its final mournful profundities. We, then, both break out in nervous little laughs; the situation, stressful as it is, presents humorous ironies. Esther is the culprit, after all, not us. We are following the course of natural consequences; it seems, however, that we will not be able to maintain the strictness of it forever. Neither of us wants to permanently separate the inseparable; it becomes grievous even for us to think about parting these two sisters who take such great comfort in sleeping with each other.

But of course, as all good parents do, we wait for the despairing crescendo to dissipate before heading back in to again reconcile the forlorn pair, and after another helping of cautionary admonitions, we leave their room with everyone’s spirits back intact, including ours.

Did we fail in this moment, or did we impart grace? Sometimes the line is a little fuzzy.