We Didn’t Cover This in Parenting Class

We wait in the carpool line past dismissal.  The AC in our electric cars is on full blast.  Our three-year-olds took a field trip to the public library today.  Autumn, their co-teacher, texted us a picture of them huddled around a computer, an unfamiliar object given the schools zero technology policy.  Some touch the keyboard, others the mouse, all have their mouths open and faces tinged blue from the screen.

Investigating the origins of speech?! It has been an unprecedented day, Autumn wrote.  At home we also support the zero technology policy, but seeing our budding intellectuals pretend to conduct online research makes us smile.

Finally Ms. Alice, the head of Mossy Hands Nursery School, appears carrying a bullhorn typically reserved for protests. We turn off our cars, no need to waste energy, and walk to her.

“Today is a first for me as an educator!  The students, well, they appear to be conducting a sit-in,” she says.

Our hearts swell with pride at this act of civil disobedience.  We joke about what our tiny gurus are protesting; more servings of locally sourced silken tofu pudding.

Nash, our children’s other co-teacher, takes the bullhorn.

“The students have learned to read,” he says.

Nash is a love and light being but he appears less radiant, perhaps overwhelmed by our small savants’ developmental catapult or he forgot his morning adaptogenic tea.  We reach for our phones, used in emergencies, to call grandparents and post on social media, Taking fiction recs for 3yo w/ college level reading proficiency!

Nash continues, it happened suddenly; sounding out street signs on the walk, flipping through picture books in the children’s section, asking the librarian things like “How much knowledge is in the library?” climbing the shelves for the history of the world, and now reading in silence except for the occasional question.

“What sort of questions?” we say.

Nash waves for us to follow him into the school.  While we agree to support our burgeoning activists, for a bit, we’re mindful they’ll soon get cranky from a glucose drop without a freshly picked and blanched mint and kale smoothie, that naps are needed for brain development, and of course sunset yoga is crucial to maintaining circadian rhythm.  We march down the hallway past our petite artists self-portraits painted with mud collected from the marshland behind the school.

Through the glass door we see them and our stomachs sink.  Our babies are in conventional chairs, their feet barely touch the floor, at desks they hunch over open books.  They’re more focused then when Baz, the local beekeeper, brings them fresh honeycomb.

Autumn comes out of the classroom.  We want to know what the hell is going on.  We want to hug our children after receiving consent.  We want to provide them observational or effort-based feedback so they are encouraged but don’t become praise junkies.  Then, we want to take them home.  She acknowledges our feelings but suggests we pause and give them space to emerge from this state on their own.

“I’m noticing they have big thoughts like why are we here and what happens when we die,” she says.

We give appreciation for Autumn’s perspective but wonder if our babies wouldn’t be more secure at home with us.  Plus, we have lentils sprouting for dinner.

As a compromise, Autumn lets one of us use a box of squirrel-shaped organic no-added sugar gummies to assist with the transition.  The parent enters the classroom shaking the box, a call that summons our children out from deep in the forest.  But the trance continues.  The parent opens the box and places a compostable packet of gummies in front of each child.  There’s no movement.  They open a packet, remove a gummy and touch it to their child’s lips. The child turns the page of, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Slumping to the floor the parent starts to cry.

“Who am I?” the child asks, their voice a bell of hope.

The parent crawls to the child.

“You are my baby!” they say.

The child reaches out and pats their parent’s head, just as our parents had done to us, and replies, “I think I am much more than that.”

 

The Bunny Family in the Wall

They arrive after Alyssa’s Daddy ran off with the au pair. Susan, desperate to not appear like the single mom she now is, lies to her boss about a running injury and offers to work from home as she recovers.  She’s never gone for a run in her life.  In the mornings they commute together up the stairs to the attic office.  There, Susan works as Alyssa watches more princess movies in one day than she has in her four-year life.  During a call Susan watches Alyssa walk to the far corner of the office and pet the wall, she has an hourglass gaze, as if her brain is rebooting.  Susan hits mute and takes off her headset.

“Everything okay, my love?” she asks.

“The bunnies are here,” Alyssa says.

Susan presses her ear to the wall but hears nothing.  Back at her desk, just to be safe, she orders animal poison for same-day delivery.  Susan rolls sandalwood and orange essential oil on her temples as Alyssa waves hi to their new house guests.  At dinner it’s all Alyssa can talk about. At bedtime she blows them a goodnight kiss.  While Alyssa sleeps, Susan throws the poison into the attic crawl space and leaves a voice message for the child therapist recommended by her life coach.

The next morning Alyssa, arms full of supplies, follows Susan up the stairs to the attic. During Susan’s weekly staff meeting Alyssa creates a pillow shrine for the bunnies and reads them Good Night Moon.  After another unsuccessful nanny interview Susan takes off her headset and hears scratching.  From her desk it’s faint, like a branch against a window on a sunny day, but next to Alyssa the sound is clear, claws on drywall.  Susan drags Alyssa downstairs and calls an exterminator from the safety of the front lawn.

“I can come tonight but there’s an emergency fee. Better that though, than them chew’n through your wires and crawling over your kid!” he said.

Despite everything, Susan wishes Alyssa’s Daddy would come back and handle this mess.  Instead she and Alyssa go to the playground and wait for the exterminator to arrive.  Alyssa cries when she sees the cages and Susan says nothing when he steps on Alyssa’s picnic blanket and leaves a muddy boot print.  After he’s done, promising it’s taken care of, Susan gives Alyssa a long bath with lavender-scented bubbles.

That night, Susan goes to the attic to finish some work.  There, she feels them breathing in the walls. Their moist exhale becomes her inhale.  What they are she refuses to know.  On hands and knees she crawls over to the wall and hears an entire village of creatures, eating and sleeping and moving and living as if everything is fine.  Susan is not fine.  Using the palm of her hand she smacks the fragile wall.  Bang!  The creatures go still.  She does it again, harder this time, making the wall bow and gray insulation dust puff out from the seams.  She’s finding her rhythm.  With both hands she pounds out her good riddance until everything goes quiet.

“Momma, time to wake up,” Alyssa whispers.  She’s mimicking how Susan used to wake her up early for long weekend adventures. The morning light beams in as Alyssa touches the attic wall. An unreadable expression washes over her face.

“Oh no!” Alyssa says.

For breakfast Susan scrambles eggs to the beat of Motown tambourines.

“Let’s go play in the ocean!” she says.

Alyssa’s expression remains sullen but Susan is sure the waves could wash it away.  Alyssa shakes her head no.  Susan sips her coffee as she watches Alyssa walk her full plate of eggs over to the counter.

“We can’t leave the bunnies alone,” Alyssa says.

Digging sounds start in the kitchen wall, so intense the eggs on Alyssa’s plate jiggle.