It was starting to get dark, and the night was going well. The glowsticks brought by one mom (in a thoughtfully giant quantity) had been distributed (the girls slept with theirs under their pillows). The kids were off pursuing one another for turns with the four laser tag harness-and-gun combos. There was a moment when I found myself holding a harness while Lucy tried to pass it directly to Naomi, and was mobbed by a group of boys who now saw me as The Authority on Whose Turn It Is Next, and also how come Naomi had gotten a turn, when they’d been waiting longer? But I extricated myself, mumbling excuses, and was just casting about for our one camping chair in order to join the circle of adults talking in front of Beverly’s tent, when Jim came up to me. “It’s two hours past their bedtime,” he said.
“Well, yeah…” I said. I thought it was obvious that it would be a late night because of camping. I glanced at the grownup circle.
“I thought maybe we’d just let them run around until everyone else starts doing bedtime too. I heard one dad say it would be bedtime at dark. That’s in an hour, maybe?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. They’re not fun to work with when they’re melting down from being overtired.”
This was true. I glanced at a laser-tag-wearer as he tore by us, hotly pursued by three non-laser-tag-wearers. I glanced again at the circle of adults. “Yes,” I said, “but I think it will also be easier when everyone else is doing it. Maybe that will make up for it? And maybe they’ll be tired from running?”
Jim shook his head. There was something in the angle of his shoulders that alerted me that this was about more than just tonight. “I don’t think so,” he said. “And I’ve seen what you get like when things aren’t going well. Also, I am tired of the double standard. When you feel relaxed, everyone’s supposed to be relaxed with you, no communication needed. But when you feel anxious and want things moving along, then everyone’s supposed to chop chop, regardless of what they think should happen.”
Oh. This was about The Bedtime Pattern.
My version of The Bedtime Pattern, a year ago, was that I was the only timekeeper, and also the one who paid when bedtime was late, because I was the one who ran the mornings for the girls. And breakfast and school drop-offs were significantly more painful with cranky, under-rested kids. Jim, in this version, was Mr. Carefree Space Cadet, sometimes still in his office working at bedtime; sometimes trying to insert unplanned skill-building (“Let’s all clean up in the kitchen before we do bedtime!”); sometimes pausing just as I was beginning to get momentum to look deeply into one of their eyes and begin a heartfelt monologue on why he loved them so much, which flowed seamlessly into a tickle fest. I, in this version of the story, was Mrs. Lonely Fun Sponge, the undeserved bad guy, doing something I already hated and was bad at (keeping time). After making a number of runs at it, my story went, and having zero support from anyone, I would lose my temper.
Jim’s version was that I had a double standard, expecting everyone else to keep a rigid schedule at bedtime, while I gave myself a pass whenever I felt like it. Also, he thought I had something going on about bedtime, that I was anxious about it for reasons that were not about anything he (or the girls) were doing. And that I was working myself into a state, and then letting everyone else have it.
I was no longer sure my version was accurate. I thought he might have a point about the anxiety; it did seem like the whole idea of bedtime stressed me out more than I knew how to explain. But I still thought Jim was wrong about the double standard—first of all, when I was the one who handle almost every morning solo, I thought I had the right to choose to let a night go late if it seemed worth it to me. I was going to be the one paying. “No,” he said, “you’re not the only one. When you come up furious with one of the girls in the morning, my work gets interrupted. It’s not just about you.”
This was when I realized we were having the Bedtime Meltdown argument at Oxbow, and that it was happening instead of A. going and hanging out with adults, or B. actually putting the girls to bed.
“Okay,” I said, “then let’s put them to bed.”
But Jim wasn’t done. He told me again that he was sick of this. My anxiety was running the show at bedtime, and it was going unchecked, and he was done standing by and letting it happen.
I told him I thought he was right, that I did have a lot of work to do on my anxiety, and that I was starting to see that, and was working on it with Miki (my therapist).
Then Jim told me again that he was sick of this.
Two mornings later in the car, Jim gave me one of his apologies-by-dramatic-re-enactment. He uses a deep hound-dog voice when he speaks for his past self in these. “I was like ‘I feel really upset about this. I think I’ll tell her.’ And then I was like, ‘Okay, I told her.’ And then I was like, ‘I still feel really upset. I think I’ll tell her again.’ So I did. Then I was like, ‘I still feel really upset. Do I think it will make anything better to tell her again? Do I have anything new to say?’ He mimed considering. ‘No, probably not. But I don’t know what else to do and I feel really upset. So I think I’ll tell her again anyway.’”
After Round Three, I was beginning to feel really upset. I got the girls, who complained some but on the whole cooperated admirably, and then before I knew it, I was so mad that when Jim got mad and stood up to leave the tent, still holding the bedtime book, I immediately accused him of planning to take it out with him and sabotage bedtime. (This was followed by him saying if I was going to accuse him of that, then he would go ahead and take it, which led to me threatening to scream at him in everyone’s hearing, which led to him giving me the book.)
He left. I looked at the girls, then told them I’d be right back, and limp-ran after him barefoot across the gravel parking lot.
“Jim,” I hissed. “You can’t just leave without telling me where you’re going or when you’ll be back. We don’t even have reception out here.”
“We are now having a public fight,” he said.
“I don’t care! I need to know where you are.”
“I can come back,” he said. “I’ll sleep in the hammock. Just give me some space.”
“Okay,” I said.
I put the girls to bed, realizing at a new level that my anxiety was causing serious problems, and also wishing Jim had not repeated his criticism so often. I tried to explain about my anxiety to the girls, and to apologize.
I heard the grownup circle wind down (Jim said this happened precipitously upon his entry into the hammock, which hung just outside the circle). People took kids off to bed, some whining loudly, but most peaceful. Bev and Doug whispered sweetly to their boys in the next tent. The girls’ breathing became slow and regular. Naomi was on the big mat with me, and Lucy was in her own sleeping back on the smaller mat. Then, to my surprise, I fell asleep.
I awoke two hours later, my heart immediately racing at the thought of our argument. I wondered who had noticed, and whether people had heard me snapping at the girls. I tried deep breathing. I heard two or three different people snoring. I cuddled with sleeping Naomi. I heard another plane pass. One of the snoring patterns shifted. I heard non-scary animal rustlings in the underbrush on the other side of the tent wall.
When Lucy began making a nonverbal complaining noise. I was almost relieved to have something to do. I rolled away from Naomi and put my hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “What’s up, sweetheart?”
Lucy woke up enough to tell me she needed to go to the bathroom. “Okay,” I said. “You know where it is, right?” She nodded, standing up in the tent. “Can you go by yourself?” She nodded again, but didn’t move.
I watched her for a moment, then asked her what she needed. “It’s cold,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“And dark.”
“Here, you can take Daddy’s book light. Also we can put a sweater on you.”
“But I will still be cold.”
We began to go in circles, and her volume began to rise. I thought about how close the other tents were on either side of us. Eventually, I got up, found my shoes, and frog-marched, her protesting loudly and yelling “Ow! Ow! Mommy, you’re hurting me!” because I was holding her arms.
We arrived at the bathroom, and her volume rose higher. “They’re smelly! I don’t want to go in!”
“Lucy, they’re the bathrooms. This is where we go.”
“But they’re SMELLY!”
Here, I realized that the two pregnant women on the trip were camped right near the bathrooms. An angry mama bear part of me took over. I covered Lucy’s mouth with my hand and said “There are pregnant women sleeping near here, and you are not going to wake them up!”
We ended up in the echoing (and yes, smelly) bathroom. I locked the door. “I’m not going to go to the bathroom in here!” Lucy’s crossed her arms on her chest, her eyes blazing.
“Fine,” I crossed my arms too. “Then we can stay here all night.”
“Fine!”
We both stared at each other, recognizing our mutual impasse. I sighed. “Can I tell you something?” She blazed her eyes at me. “So here’s the thing. If we all go to the bathroom everywhere, all over the camp, and then the next group comes and does the same thing, and then the next group, then pretty soon the whole camp smells. And in the summer there’s no rain to wash it away. So we agree to go in these toilets, and yes, they smell, but that’s the tradeoff for keeping the whole camp from smelling.” She hunched her shoulders, arms still crossed.
“So. What do you want to do?” I asked.
She looked at me. “I’ll go in the one next door,” she said.
I nodded.
She went.
We washed our hands at the faucet outside.
Five steps from the faucet, she began chattering cheerfully, as though nothing at all had just happened. “Do you remember the horse that stopped on the trail, Mom? The one we ALL got to pet? The one called Cash?” I did; he’d been a beautiful tan horse with chocolate-colored mane, tail, and stockings on his legs. The owner told me he was a Rocky Mountain Horse, and she had stopped for a full ten minutes to let the kids take turns petting his cheeks. Cash had stayed admirably calm, only looking up sharply once at a deer down the trail.
I got Lucy settled back in bed and laid awake some more. When it was still dark, I began to hear a noise: tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, pitterpitterpatter. It was raining.
I heard Jim rustling out of his hammock, and was, again, glad for something to do other than lie there. I crawled out and put my shoes on.
He was moving the guy wires on the hammock’s rain cover out further. (Under the rain cover, it was wrapped in mosquito netting; Jim is nothing if not prepared.)
“Can I help you?” I asked softly.
“I don’t think so.”
I watched him in silence. He finished, and opened the hammock to climb in.
“Jim?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I have a hug?”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry about my anxiety blowing up a lot at bedtime.”
“We’ll figure it out. It’s just stuff. I think it’s going to be okay.”