How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane by Johanna Stein Read Free Book Online

her would be for me to just go in there and pick her up. But our long-term sanity, her health and welfare, and the integrity of her soft little delete key—not to mention the intensity of my need to be right all the time—all of it depends on this plan working.
    I make a pact with myself that, whatever happens, I will be strong. And instead of merely blocking out the sound of her cries, I take a Zen approach and listen intently, really hearing her. It is then that I become aware of how impressively varied and expressive her cries are.
    What follows is an approximate translation of those first five minutes:
        “Wah? . . .”
        Why hast thou forsaken me?
        “ WAH!!! ”
        WHERE THE FRIG ARE YOU?!
        “ Muhhhh? ”
        I can hear you skulking around out there—guess you should have opted for carpet over bare wood floors. Now stop screwing around and get in here NOW. I need to be jiggled .
        “Eeeeeh-UHHH! ”
        Please? I love you. No, I don’t. I hate your guts .
        “ Wahhhhaaaa . . .”
        I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean when I said I hated your guts. I understand this is difficult for you, but if you’d just open that door, I’m sure we could work this out together .
        “ WAHHHHH!!!! ”
        I WILL KILL YOU IN YOUR SLEEP!!!
    Finally, the five-minute timer goes off with an AWOOOOOGAH ! (because yes, I am the person who uses the old-timey car horn as my ring tone).
    I open the door and stick my head into her room. She stops midcry, standing in her crib, red-faced and startled, as though I’ve just caught her shoplifting. I say the thing that I’m supposed to say, to the effect of “Hi sweetie, Mommy’s here, everything’s okay. Nighty-night.” And then I step out and close the door behind me.
    Now she is pissed . She has very clearly picked up on the fact that she is being manipulated, and she is so very NOT down with it. She continues screaming, though now she has added a new sound into the mix, an indignant, growly screech that would be perfect if she were the lead singer of an ’80s death-metal band. Which, to my knowledge, she is not.
    The next ten minutes are endless and pass with all the ease of a Pap-smear exam. I pace around the hallway, listening to her shrieks and trying hard to remember if The Exorcist was based on factual source material.
    At the ten-minute mark— AWOOOOOGAH !—I open the door to her room. Her face is moist with tears andsweat; she’s angry and exhausted. I know that face; I’ve seen it in the mirror a thousand times, on the heels of a thousand rage-filled disappointments.
    I step into the room and say some more soothing words; I set the timer on my phone, and again I close the door. I consider yanking the husband out of his Carrie-Anne Moss–filled cocoon so that I can get some moral support—but no. I will do this alone. And once it’s over, I will gloat about having done so.
    And then something miraculous happens. Within a few minutes her cries taper off and transition to deep, snore-y breaths. She is actually falling asleep.
    But just as her breaths grow slower and longer, an insistent new sound erupts, this one from the house next door. I sprint on tiptoes to the bathroom and peek through the blinds, through which I can see the neighbor, not five feet away, inside her house, busily vacuuming the wall.
    I can’t quite process what I’m seeing. It’s eight o’clock at night. And the sound is so loud, it seems she’s vacuuming marbles out of her drapes. WHY ARE THERE MARBLES IN HER DRAPES?! I knock on the window, but of course she