Parents understand silence is highly desired and also threatening to the peace. Most of the day is filled with high pitched voices that have no semblance of volume control. When they are 2 feet from one another, you can hear them from across the house. When they are downstairs, they whisper in response to any questions shouted down.
So when it reaches the pure silence of bliss, it is not uncommon to feel the stress melt out of your shoulders as you fold into the cushions of whatever relaxing furniture is nearby. That serenity allows your mind to slow down and process the information in a way that parents are rarely afforded.
That is the trigger.
Collecting the thoughts of an exhausted and overwhelmed parent carries with it the danger of previous experiences training the stress response. It is vicious. You need the silence to relax yet every other time there was silence, it seems like one of the children has concocted some massive science experiment in the bathroom or they have built some huge contraption meant to launch them into space that is far more likely to end their lives. When kids get creative, kids get quiet, and they often do what they feel they shouldn’t, so they intentionally seek not to alert their life-preserving caregivers.
It isn’t always a life, limb, or eyesight threatening scenario. It often feels that way, and the quick assent from deep relaxation through parental DEFCON tiers is rehearsed regularly in their early childhood when their heads are much too big for their bodies and they lack the coordination or skill to do much of anything well, but they also lack the knowledge to keep themselves from trying most things. So the learned panic response is critical to a child’s survival, even when it isn’t warranted.
Silence can often spark in me the adrenaline charged search for signs of life. It is just as frequent that I might find my boys pretending to be Harry Potter or calling for help from Master Wu as they run around their imaginary Ninjago universe and fight LEGO monsters. Sure, they might be preparing to launch themselves off the top of the playground they managed to scale, but it might just be that they are training imaginary raptors with Owen’s clicker.
A parent can never really know what to expect.
After quickly confirming no premature deaths were imminent, I was able to settle back down and relax. The boys were just playing and delaying the bedtime routine as long as possible. They never delay their bedtime for more than a few minutes, but they lose out on the fun parts of the routine, like reading books or some of the songs. They haven’t really figured that out yet, but they still try to delay.
Then came the sound that usually means the game they were playing got out of hand and one of them struck the other. Sobs. Loud sobbing began to come forth from their room with the threatening promise to require scolding and probably time outs, not to mention kisses for barely red spots on the victim’s skin.
I braced myself to not overreact until I had some fidelity on what had transpired. When the youngest came from the room complete with the protruding bottom lip and eyes welling with tears, we asked him what happened. Without hesitation he jabbed his tiny finger back at the room in a gesture meant to inflict emotional damage to his older brother and squeaked out, “he told me I have mucus!”
Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes as I absorbed what happened. His older brother told him he had mucus, and in his little world this was some sort of insult. He couldn’t conceive of the fact that saying he has mucus is like saying he has fingers, or toes, or hair on his head. He hadn’t been physically harmed at all, which is the normal reason the cries start like that, but had felt some great offense at being told he was human and alive.
It was adorable.
It took quite a bit of cajoling to get him to understand that he did, in fact, have mucus, but that it was normal and healthy. Fortunately for me, he is just getting old enough to realize that his tears over the matter were kind of funny and extremely unnecessary. I tried to conceal my smiles and laughter but once he giggled about it, we all shared a good laugh.
Lessons were learned and fortunately, this time didn’t involve any discipline required or trips to an emergency room. I didn’t even have to be the bad guy by telling them that no, I will not allow them to commit suicide by launching themselves off of extreme heights onto the less than receptive concrete below. I also didn’t have to almost lose my mind when they tell me they won’t get hurt while climbing a collapsing pile of debris with my sharp tools they have acquired without asking.
This time, it was just the nefarious and infamous mucus. The rest of the evening was uneventful. Just threatening books and songs to get them to change into their pajamas and floss and brush their teeth. I don’t remember if we actually took any of that away that night or not, but I do remember my youngest’s nemesis….the mucus.
Also funny in this episode is that my oldest thought that was a legitimate way to offend someone. He actually told his brother he had mucus with the same zeal that he would have called him stupid. So he also had to be educated that mucus was normal, and then corrected for his intent to hurt his brother’s feelings. At least if you’re going to try to hurt someone emotionally, which you shouldn’t, it would help if you don’t point out a physiological normal phenomenon, right?
Now, mucus can still be a bother. Especially when they are really little. Those clogged little nasal passages can make sleeping difficult for the little ones and that means sleeping is difficult for everyone. NoseFrida is a great tool for mechanical mucus removal in infants. They sleep better, and therefore you sleep better. For slightly bigger little ones, pillows elevating the head and blowing the nose are pretty good too.
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