The Family Curse

All my life, I grew up hearing that every crisis that occurred in our family occurred when my father was in Columbus, where he worked during the week.

"There was a bat in the living room, flying all around, and I had to figure out how to kill it because you father was in Columbus."

"The dog killed a bat that could have been rabid, and I had to take care of it because your father was in Columbus."

"Godzilla tried to crawl in the third story window and I had to figure out how to defeat him because your father was in Columbus."

The refrain became familiar, and we chuckled about it.

We have been reading "The Lady of Shalott" to BC and it has become a favorite of hers. She now knows the line, "'The curse is come upon me,' cried the Lady of Shalott." Matt is out of town this week on business. This morning, when I was in her room getting her ready for the day, she became very agitated and said, "The curse is come upon my room!" She repeated it several times, I affirmed that she was indeed saying what I thought she was saying, and I went on with my day.

Later in the day, when she was getting ready for her nap, she again was agitated and said that the curse had come upon her room. She pointed at her closet and looked at me with wide-eyed expectation. Apparently, the curse was in the closet. I pointed at everything within reach, but none of it satisfied her as constituting or containing the curse. I begin to point at things out of reach. Sure enough, one of those things was the curse. Simply identifying it was utterly insufficient. I next needed to ERADICATE it. And what was "it"? It was a small black duffel bag that contained a few books on natural birth and breastfeeding. I refuse to believe that she could possibly know those books were related to her little brother in any way. I choose instead to believe it was an entirely irrational conclusion that a black duffel bag contained an unidentified evil. After much effort, a rain of feathers from old ballet costumes stored nearby, a vacuuming frenzy to clean up the feathers, and a few frustrated exclamations, I retrieved the duffel bag. I started to put the vacuum cleaner away and realized that she was dragging the duffel bag out of her room. She was completely committed to its removal. Now. Without delay. And then she took her nap without further ado.

After some errand-running this evening, I treated myself to a Chai and brought it back to the house. Stupidly, I set it on the table where she could reach it. She was trying to take something else off the table and she knocked the Chai over and it went everywhere. On her. On the wooden table. On the beige carpet. On the couches. Everywhere. And she was a screaming mess. A hot screaming mess, you might say. Thank God she was unhurt, but what a mess!

I immediately texted my mother: "Toddler scalds herself and destroys part of the living room. And where is Matt? Wait for it . . . COLUMBUS! It's a family curse. And taking the black duffel bag out of the closet did not fix it."

In fact, it may have made it worse. I then dropped my phone into a bowl full of water.

I'm going to bed now.