Event Within a Tale Within a Story

In theory, I’m working on a short story. In fact, however, I’m just daydreaming a lot and finding ways to avoid sitting down to start the writing process.

Writing is scary for me these days. Though I once had so much confidence in my ability to put my thoughts to paper, I know cringe at how unnatural it feels to create a solid piece of word craft. Part of me says that I just have a better understanding of good writing these days and thus have higher expectations than I did when I was younger. But another part of me knows that my lack of practice, my years of not writing followed by this stream of consciousness blog rambling (the writing equivalent of a fully Twinkie diet) has corrupted my ability to tell a cohesive tale. So, I’m left to think that since the story is so interesting and engaging in my own mind…why mess it up with feebly constructed words? Why yank it down from Plato’s higher reality to limp about as a shadow of its perfect self? Why prove to myself just how far my story-craft has faded?

So…um…I’ve been avoiding the hard work of story-craft lately. I just don’t feel like writing in the evenings, hit the snooze button in the mornings, and pesky work keeps me from writing in the afternoons. Not sure what magical non-time time I’m waiting for to be the perfect writing time…but it hasn’t arrived yet. I’ve even sat down to work on my story…but made the blog rounds instead. Therefore, tomorrow I’m going to try to sneak away from the house and find some quiet nook in the local library. No internet connection, no work, no distractions. If I can’t write like that…well I’ll just have to give up and admit that I obviously just don’t want to write.

And how have I scored this time away from home and Norah? Well, it was hard earned by taking such good care of my wife and child while Moonshot huddled in bed, locked in combat against a particularly nasty cold. She’s doing much better now and suggested the library hide-away as both a solution to my writing problem and as a thank-you for stepping up and taking care of things while she recouped. Crafty wife…tricking me into productivity even as she rewards my hard work.

There is, however, one dark cloud that could waylay the quiet story time. Norah is learning to go to sleep on her own. Unrelated you say? Not at all. Everything in the Gren household is directly related to Norah’s mood; she is the filter through which all homestead events must be viewed.

Our treasured baby-rearing books inform us that Norah is now old enough to start the difficult transition into a child who can fall asleep by herself in her crib. We’re told that her five months of life have solidified her faith in us as caregivers and we are now able to let her cry for longer periods of time without her feeling she has been abandoned. Currently, the only way she really falls asleep is in our arms (typically to wake up when laid down). The absolute inconvenience of this arrangement made us eager for the transition to occur. And so, last night we began this process. We wrapped her in blankets, rocked her and read her a bed time story until her eyes looked heavy. We transferred her to her crib, turned on her bedtime music, kissed her forehead and left despite the fact that her little eyes had popped open fully the second her head touched the mattress.

Oh the screaming! Oh the rage!

The house was filled with her howls. We could hear her little mouth filling with snot as she screeched against the injustice of our abandonment. We knew that little fists were pumping against the cruel universe, but we just kept finding some way to distract ourselves from our guilt. We kept reminding ourselves that she was fine. Nothing was wrong other than she wanted us to come…which was exactly what she needed to get over. But it’s not easy. We’ve spent 5 months responding to her every cry and rushing to her aid whenever she claimed to need it. Turning our backs on that instinct ran against every grain in our new parent bodies. We just kept stealing glances at the clock, reminding ourselves that the “What to Expect” book assured us that the average baby gives up the fight after no more than 45 minutes of yowling.

Blessed silence finally descended over the house after “only” 33 minutes of high pitched complaint and she sank into a deep sleep. Hours later, however, this peace was almost disrupted by Troubadour Dali, the band across the street. Seems they decided that 2:30 am was the perfect time to record some drum tracks for their new album. Norah isn’t even on that side of the house and I could hear on the baby monitor that she was being disturbed by the thunderous beats from the unassuming little white house.

In my bathrobe and new Christmas slippers, I made my way through the cold drizzle to the band’s porch, my footsteps on the sidewalk drowned out by the thump-thump-thump of the Troubadours’ rhythm section. On their porch, I pounded and pounded on the door but it did little to get their attention as the drummer continued his cymbal beating frenzy. I eventually just stuck my head and arms into the living room and waved my hands about in a lame attempt to make someone see me. There were just two people in the room…the oblivious drummer and an equally oblivious young girl at the computer monitoring the recording levels. I remember thinking in my sleepy, arm-flapping state that they both had very nice hair under their headphones. Such things cross my mind at 2:30 apparently. Suddenly the girl caught sight of a madly waving robed figure and startled. The drummer put down his sticks and took off his headphone. He smiled and said, “Oh, is it too loud out there?” in a friendly and slightly embarrassed way.

“Um…yeeeeeah,” I replied with a slow smile and nod.

“Oh,” he said sheepishly. “Really loud, huh?”

“Yeeeeeeah.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“No problem,” I replied with what I hoped was a friendly tone. It’s hard to tell since I was half asleep. They’re nice guys and usually try to be courteous neighbors, so I’m just going to assume that those headphone they were both wearing were so amazingly good that they had no idea how deafening his pounding was. While I had to play the curmudgeonly neighbor, I hope I came across as the amused curmudgeon that I am.

After this, Norah slept all night and didn’t even want to be waked for breakfast.

Anyway, Moonshot will be continuing the sleep training with Little Miss’s naps today. She’ll be put in her crib for each nap. If she doesn’t want to sleep, that’s fine…she’ll be picked up and given another try when she again acts tired. But, under no circumstances will she be given the option of sleeping in Moonshot’s arms. Eventually, she should get tired enough that the crib seems good enough.

I have no idea what this process will do to her mood. Saturday may find a relaxed child who has made her peace with the new sleeping arrangements, or it may find a grumpus who is overly tired and pushing her parents to the limit of their patience. If the former…I get to have some quiet time at the library. If the latter…well…I’ll just have to keep waiting for the imaginary perfect writing time as I continue to enjoy the still Plato-perfect story that that rumbles about in my head.