night. “That’s awesome.” And I mean it. Took forever to night train his sister Macie.
“There’s a monster in my room.”
I’m too tired for this. “No, there’s not.”
“Yes, there is.”
Here’s the thing about three-year-olds: they can continue this type of conversation for hours. A doggedness I swear my children inherited from their mother—my wife.
Exhausted from a few late nights due to finishing a project—designing a high-end house, one of many on my growing list of clients—and then from helping Echo clean up after the vomiting hurricane that was kiddo number one this evening, I fall back onto the bed. Damn that pillow feels good, and I’d give a kidney to keep my eyes closed.
“Echo?” I say. She rolls onto her side, away from me, while simultaneously kicking my leg. Hard enough that it should sting, but I’m immune to the action. “It’s your turn.”
“No, it’s not,” comes that sexy groggy voice that still has a way of making me want to wrap my arms around her and kiss her until she’s breathless.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
As I said, doggedness that can go on for hours.
“I put Macie to bed tonight,” I say. That meant four books, two sips of water, three trips to the bathroom, six laps around the dining room table and me falling asleep in her bed as she read book number five to me.
“And after two grueling twelve-hour labors, you sweet-talked in my ear how much you wanted another baby.” She drops her voice to mimic me. “A third baby will be a piece of cake. The labor will be shorter. We have this baby thing down.” She returns to her sexy drowsy tone. “Do I need to remind you of the twenty-four hours of labor followed up by an emergency C-section and then two months of a colicky baby while you travelled three of those weeks for work? And I’m the one Macie threw up on tonight because you were determined to play that stupid jelly bean game with her. I call not my turn for the next four years.”
For people so small, my children can expel horrifying amounts of puke in the span of thirty seconds. Plus, they spew like a lawn sprinkler, that is until you actually deposit them in front of a toilet. That’s when they’re empty.
While I’m exhausted, I can’t argue with Echo’s well-thought-out, two-in-the-morning argument. Makes me wonder how long she’s been forming this speech, and whether I need to step up my game for a planned counterattack.
Tonight, or rather this morning, she wins. Echo has clients tomorrow. After a few years of doing freelance artwork, which she still does on the side, she eventually earned her master’s degree in art therapy. Helping traumatized children is a tough job, but Echo has a gift, and at the end of the day feels she’s making a difference. I believe that, too.
I roll out of bed and swoop Seth into my arms. He lays his red-haired head on my shoulder, and any annoyance that I had from my two a.m. wake-up dissolves.
Our oldest, five-year-old Macie, is headstrong, determined and exudes confidence. So much, it may be possible to bottle it and sell it in bulk at Costco. Her only downfall is she can’t stomach dead-fish-flavored jelly beans. Our baby, Oliver, is only eight months, but he’s as chill as they come. A constant smile on his face, and not counting his first three months, rarely cries.
Seth, though, is the one that yanks out your heart and hands it to you. His soul aches for every lost cat and every puppy without a home, and he’s terrified caterpillars are lonely when they go into their cocoons. If he needs monsters scared away, I’m the man for the job. After all, I’m his dad.
I head down the hallway and take the first door on the right. His nightlight is on and it gives his room a soft glow. I lay him down in his toddler bed, a gift from my best friend: a red racecar made out of thick plastic that holds his tiny mattress. Even though it’s a shrunken version of a twin bed, my son looks small as I pull the blanket over his pajama-clad body.
I then do the dad thing—check under the bed, open and close the closet doors and mock a ninja chop when sneaking a peek behind the door, which earns me a fit of giggles from the bed.
Content that his room is safe, Seth rolls onto his back and stares