this is what we're doing now
making labels with a label maker inside the forever now
that’s how it goes with toddlers.
you do one thing and...that’s it.
that’s it, forever.
you will never do anything else because don’t you see, dada, this is what we’re doing now.
this is all there is.
like right now, we’ve got the labelmaker out. Emma June calls it a phone. Hello dada?
Yes Hi?
Bye dada.
Oh bye.
Toddlers love a process and we’ve got this one dialed in:
emma june tells me a name
i type it out on the Nokia-style keyboard with little buttons for each letter
she smushes the white Print button with her sausage fingers and here it comes, VRRR out the side.
we push the cut button together on three - 1, 2, 3, SNIP and
we’ve got it now, the little label that says EMMA JUNIE - that’s what her older brother Wilder called her once, and now it’s stuck like a label except you don’t have to spend 10 minutes clawing at it with your nails to figure out how to actually make it stick but
eventually we do, we figure it out, by folding the label long ways like a hot dog bun, revealing the two long halves of the adhesive.
i take one half off, then the other, and i hand it to her, ready to stick. She takes it to the door and slaps it on there, diagonal and off and perfect.
Good work all around. What’s next?
“Wilder” she says, so I type WILDER - that’s her 4yo big brother who loves her because she’s insane just like he is, and they seem to be the only two people alive who don’t yet spend their entire lives trying to convince the world otherwise.
I print and snip and peel and she takes the label and demands I stay there, by the label maker, in case maybe she has an idea for a new label while she’s away.
But i don’t stay there. I walk back to the computer which is a good three feet away from the couch and two feet from the door (the three things make a right triangle if you can believe it).
I’m by the computer because I want to write this down - this essay right here - because i can feel it happening, this story, in real time, which happens sometimes, except usually I get scared and anxious when that happens like ‘oh shit here we go’. Usually, I panic because I know the story is worth sharing and I won’t do it justice. How could I? And I’m ashamed that I’m not in it fully, that i’m already outside of it, looking in like a sweaty archeologist of my most precious little moments because i’m there at the scene way too early, the dinosaurs are still alive, chomping down on grass and looking at me like “huh,” but there i am, waiting for their fossilized remains, grubby pawed and mustached.
But not today. Today I’m good, somehow, typing out the next name - LUCA - Wilder’s best friend. Emma June hits the print button and we push together, 1, 2, 3, snip and peel and she’s off to the door so i have three seconds to write until we’re back for
PENNY - Luca’s 9yo sister and Emma June’s best friend - snip, peel and
DADA - snip, peel, and
MAMA - snip, peel, and
EMMA JUNE this time, not JUNIE - snip peel and here’s Wilder exploding through the door, all purpose and sleep eyes.
“Mama said check your texts.”
I go to the computer and follow the blue dot: two new messages from Lauren:
Breakfast menu options:
Avocado toast
Oatmeal
Eggs
Sticks
and
Your waiter will
Be with you shortly
“Are you the waiter?” I ask and then remember Wilder likes to be called The Bringer.
“Are you the bringer?”
“For pretend,” he tells me, “so what do you want?”
“I want...what do you want?” I ask.
“Oatmeal”
“Then I want oatmeal too Emma June do you want oatmeal”
“Yesh”
“Oatmeal for everyone” I say and he looks pleased, like his work here is done. “Do you wanna go tell mama” I say.
“Ya” he says and loiters, led by his limbs, touching stuff, pushing things, kicking.
Back over my shoulder, I see Emma June with several new MAMA labels in her hands. How?
VRRRR comes another one as she turns the label maker on its side to get more leverage and pushes with all her weight down onto the button and CLIP and yep:
I was no longer needed. All of parenting, boiled down to this one moment, with MAMA labels scattered across the couch.
“Wilder wait,” I say and print out a new label: “This says OATMEAL, go bring it back in to Mama as our order.”
He’s gone and Emma June says “Hyelp Dada” like she’s in a soviet melodrama. Everything she does, we’ve realized, is quite soviet - the lost for words sadness, the overjoy at sharing food with everyone, the need to be needed, all just like her dad.
And I am. I am needed, still, for the adhesive part of the process, and so I liberate the MAMA stickers and hand them each to her, one by one, as she takes each to the door and sticks it on before returning to VRRR and SNIP more OATMEAL ones for me to work on.
“Can I play with you guys” Wilder says, back now.
“Sure, what do you want to print?” I ask, handing him the label maker and noticing, over his shoulder, how almost all of the labels are on the doorknob, each atop the last.
He thinks as Emma June grabs the label maker.
“Mine!” she screams.
“No it’s wilder’s turn,” i tell her and somehow she’s fine? The dual plights of second siblinghood and patriarchy already wearing her down?
“What do you want it to say Wilder?”
“I love everybody and I set everything out.”
Come on. I mean...what the hell. I love everybody and I set everything out? Everything they say feels like poetry but this is beyond.
I type and print it - “I LOVE EVERYBODY AND I SET EVERYTHING OUT” which takes a long while like a fax machine with a timeless missive from the ancient past, the most meaningful and beautiful thing anyone’s ever said.
I hand it to him without undoing the adhesive, so he can bring it inside, and Emma June’s grabbing at the label maker phone and Wilder is growling.
That’s his new thing - growling like he’s got satan in him.
My new thing is screaming time out like I’m a really bad coach who lost the respect of his team years ago:
“Time out!!”
Nothing.
“Time out guys time out”
GRRRRR
MINE
GRRRR
VRRRR
TIME
OUT
GRRRRR
VRRRRR
Nothing stops it, but it does stop, briefly, as Wilder relents. “You’re a poopie head and never going to do this again” he says.
“Mama” Emma June says and so I print MAMA.
“Wilder” Wilder says, and I let him print it:
W
I
L
D
E
R
R
R
R
R
WILDERRRR
And then they’re back to screaming and crying and shrieking and there’s a VRRRR in my brain now because I am no longer enjoying the magic of living inside the story, not even a little bit.
I’m mad. Rolling my eyes for some reason. Wishing this would end even though I know I’ll one day miss it (allegedly).
Emma June requests we print her name and so I do - EMMA JUNE.
Wilder requests we print his name and so I do - WILDER.
Emma June requests we print her name and so I do - EMMA JUN - the label maker stops. There’s no more tape. It’s done.
More growling now and wailing, the shrieking of banshees that rise with the morning sun hey look at that I bet breakfast is ready let’s go get that breakfast!!
Emma June’s already at the door. She’s trying to open it, but she can’t because it is covered in labels. Besides the two she’d stuck originally to the door, every single label is right there on the doorknob, one on top of the other, this glob of white labels with all caps black text. How had I missed that?
Wilder tries to help her, but she pushes him away.
“HEEEYYY” he wails and we’re about to rinse and repeat except I scream “GUYS I GOT IT.”
They both stop and look at me, like “coach? is that you?”
Let’s all do it together, I say, inside the story and aware of it, the archeologist and the dinosaur, not extinct, not yet.
I put my hand on Emma June’s hand and Wilder puts his hand on mine, one glob of sausage fingers covering the globe of MAMA upon DADA upon EMMA JUN upon WILDERRRR upon OATMEAL upon OATMEAL upon OATMEAL and it’s 1, 2, 3 - SNIP - and we’re out.
share this
lets talk about it?
thoughts?
labels?
reactions?
how are you ?
what’s your go to toddler breakfast (answer whether or not you have kids)
how are things since #5?
6) Cheerios picked up off the floor
Oh my, I am always a sucker for your stories about the kids (and you as a kid), but this was especially good on so many different levels. So hard to stay present as a story teller, as both observer and observed, but this story portrays that tension beautifully. Thanks.