The Ritual

"Are you ready?" the P-Dawg inquires every night at eleven.

"No! I'm still brushing my teeth!" I tell him through a mouthful of foam. He stops in the doorway, adjusts the drawstring on an ancient pair of hospital issue scrubs-turned-pajamas, and waits.

When we have both completed our nightly hygiene routines, activated the security system, and dimmed the lights, it is finally time. Hand-in-hand, we make our way down the upstairs hallway to perform the ritual that has been bookending our days for the past six and a half years . . .

The Checking of the Kids.

We enter the V-meister's lair first. She is nearly always lying flat on her back and so still that I'm compelled to lean in close enough to let our molecules mingle. A pink flashlight and a copy of The Grapes of Math rest on her warm, narrow chest. For kicks, the P-Dawg takes one gravid little hand by the wrist and lifts it high into the air, then lets it drop like a weight onto the mattress. V-meister could sleep through the apocalypse. I brush tendrils of sweaty hair away from her forehead as I kiss it.

We close the door and cross the hall.

Some nights we find J-dog slumbering on the floor, some nights on his mattress with derrier in the air. And sometimes he's kneeling at the side of the bed with his face planted in Dr. Seuss's Dictionary. There is a never ending procession of items to be removed from underneath his sheets: a Twilight Turtle, a walkie-talkie, a city of Legos, an armada of matchbox cars. The P-Dawg whispers subliminal messages into his ear. "You will poop on the potty . . . you will not wake up before seven o'clock." I kiss his forehead and he flinches, swatting at my greedy love.

We close the door gently and pad off to bed. At least for one more night, everyone is safe and accounted for. Our day's work is done.

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When my brothers and I would return home from college for the holidays, our mother never failed to state how good it was having us all together under one roof. I could never understand this. What difference did it make where we were sleeping?

Oh, I get it now. And even though I still think it's creepy, Lord help me I am starting to identify with the old lady in the childrens' book Love You Forever.

You know, the one who would sneak into her grown son's house at night to watch him sleep?


The V-meister, three months old. We could
not figure out why, the first night we brought
her home from the hospital, stuck a pacifier in
her mouth, swaddled her burritolike and set
her down in the middle of a vast expanse of crib,
she would not fall asleep.