Week Without Walls, Kitugala

A Snow Globe Moment

I remember recently reading an article that stated research shows the hardest years of parenting are the tween, or middle school, years. Sure, the early years are more physically exhausting -- sleepless nights, changing diapers, wrestling squirming babies into cotton onesies -- but the tween years can be more emotionally taxing. 

Elise first used the "snow globe" analogy when Sam was in his tweens, when he would go through these prolonged periods of existential ennui or angsty discombobulation. When he would throw himself into a frenzy over slight provocations. Or no provocations at all. He would brood, argue, mope, stew, boil, sometimes all at once. And there was nothing anyone could say or do, no amount of logic or coherent argument that could help see through the fog of melancholy. Elise described it as though someone had shaken Sam's brain like a snow globe. There was nothing to do except wait and let it settle. 

The analogy is fitting. I can just imagine his brain firing off impulses at an alarming rate, neurons spasming, neurotransmitters flashing like lightning, leaping across synapses. There was nothing to do except wait for the storm to pass or blow itself out, dark clouds speeding overhead, eventually drifting apart and letting the sun shine through. When we recently spoke to the guidance counselor at school, she told Elise and I that there are physiological changes taking place, as well. I knew hormones were at work, but the guidance counselor said that even the heart rate is changing, slowing in the chests of kids in the middle school years. I hadn't realized the transformation was that profound. 

After some time, Sam had fewer of these moments. Just in time for Peter to start. 

If I had to pick which years I would want to go to school online and forego all social interaction with my peers it would definitely have been seventh and eighth grades. Coincidentally, those are the years Sam missed during the pandemic. I count him lucky, in a sense. Peter less so. He is getting the full-on middle school horror show. Though at their school in Sri Lanka -- as good as it is -- the experience will never be anything like what Elise and I had to suffer through. I hated middle school. An experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies' kids. I one thousand percent wish I could have skipped those years all together. Why couldn't there have been a pandemic 1984-85? 

I know, too -- or at least hope he will -- that Peter will grow out of these horrible mood swings. They're so much worse when he's hungry and can often be remedied or, at least, ameliorated by food. Peter has always been are "hangriest" child. So much so we had to initiate a warning light system, so that when we felt his blood sugar levels dipping into the danger zone we told him to holler, "Yellow light!" in hopes we could wave off the worst of whatever woe was sure to come at the pass. 

Lay With Me

"Dad?" The small, disembodied voice comes as a whisper out of the darkness. Peter is tucked in his bed, covers pulled up to his chin, under a mosquito net tent pulled over his mattress. Elise and I have gotten in the habit of sleeping under one, as well, through the Joseph Conradian heart of dengue season, humid, rain-sopped spring months where you can see mosquito larvae squiggling to life in the puddles in the street outside our front door.

The mosquito tent makes you feel like you're camping every night, zipping in and out of it. Though it's hard to sneak out in the morning when I wake early to start the kids' breakfast. 

"Yeah," I reply, speaking into the void. 

"Will you lay with me?"

Elise tells the kids her mom used to lay with her at night, lights out, as she fell asleep. She's the one that initiated this practice in our own family. Neither my mom or dad ever laid with me. I don't feel as though I missed out. I never knew such a thing existed. At the end of the day, protected by the cloak of darkness, whispering in small voices, the contents of their days come spilling out in ways other modes of inquiry and interrogation -- tested right after they get off the bus, come falling through the front door, pitching backpacks, shoes, socks, and gym bags to the floor, or at the dinner table -- failed to produce.

"I feel like talking to somebody."

When the kids shared a room, Elise and I would eavesdrop on the conversations they would have with each as they drifted off to sleep, eventually ending with saying 'good night' to each other, a particularly heartwarming moment. Having their own room is an exertion of independence and individuality, but it doesn't come without a trade-off. There isn't anyone to talk to as you fall asleep. 

I unzip Peter's mosquito net tent and crawl in. I reach for his hand, and we interlace our fingers. Most times, I just listen to his quiet breathing slow. But that night, he specifically told me he wanted to talk, so I asked him about his day. And it came, in ways it otherwise usually, almost never does. 

Some nights, I'm too tired. Some nights, I rhetorically ask, "Do you know how many nights my dad laid with me?" To which all three kids -- and sometimes Elise, too -- answer in unison, "ZERO!"

Elise doesn't lay with Sam anymore. Most nights he goes to bed after us now. I still ask Clementine if I can sing her a song good night. She still says yes. Someday, she'll say no. Like she's doing me a favor, careful nor to hurt my feelings.