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LIBERTY, MAINE — The baby is asleep, strapped in her car seat and locked in the car, having been driven around rural Maine until she conked out. Inside our rented cottage, fire is licking feebly around a heap of damp logs. Violet is creeping around on all fours, mewing, as befits a witch's black cat. Molly reclines regally on the La-Z-Boy, waving a bit of kindling about and putting spells on the cat and on Paris, her brother, who resents being turned into Goldilocks, "only with pink hair."
"Okay," says Molly, twitching her wand, "Now you're a canoe." He drops like a plank, and the cat tries to lick his face. "Ugh, stop it, Violet," says the canoe. It is 9:15 A.M. We have all been up since 5:30, when the baby fell out of bed. I am not sure how I came to believe that it was a clever idea for me to decamp for five weeks with four small children to a small lakeside cottage in a place not known for its consistent temperatures. I think it had something to do with a desire to refresh our spirits with a taste of the bucolic; I know it had something to do with an expectation of languid evenings sipping gin by the lake while the children frolicked in the shallows. But somehow in my calculations I failed to grasp fully the implications of coming here alone. For my husband has stayed behind in Washington, in professional harness, as it were, and I, poor thing, am in bit and bridle up here. It is Day Three. "Mummy! We can toast things now," Paris says, pointing to the now-snapping fire. The window behind him shows whitecaps on Lake St. George; it's windy and very cold outside. "Can we toast cereal?" "Can we toast graham crackers?" I am tucked into a corner of the sofa, typing inconspicuously. "Can we toast marshmallows?" Molly asks in a wheedly voice. "Later," I say. "But you said you'd do something with us," she pursues. "I have," I reply. "I have driven for 15 hours so that you can play here." "But you said we could have marshmallows." "Yes. But not for breakfast. Why don't you slice some bread, stick it on twigs, and hold it over the fire? There's cinnamon sugar in the cupboard, you can use that, too." Violet comes over and begins brushing my hair with a stick. "Can you put butter on this? It keeps breaking off," says Paris, coming out of the kitchen. The cold butter won't spread on his chunk of baguette, which is jammed on the point of a stick. "Take the bread off the stick, butter it, then put it back on the stick," I say. "My mutter is belted," Molly announces from the fireplace, "And my tread is boasted." "Miaou," says Violet. The drawback about being the only adult along on a jolly family vacation is that if anything needs doing, I'm the one who does it. I must change every diaper, open every jar, strike every match, light every barbeque, zip every life vest, boil every pot, slice every onion, adjudicate every fight, buy every ear of corn, read every bedtime story, brush most of the teeth and clip every nail. All this puts paid to my airy notions that I also was going on holiday. It's not that my children are useless, but they are young, there's a fair number of them, and I have evidently failed thus far to instill in them Yankee values of can-do self-reliance. "Okay, darlings," I say, looking up decisively. "When you've finished your bread, Paris will tidy up the living room, Violet will be Vacuum Girl, and you, Molly, will do the dishes." "Great!" they chorus. Can it be this easy? Is this how pioneers mothers did it? Alas, no. Immediately there's a squabble about which lucky child actually deserves to wash the dishes, ending with me repeating the original order, with the proviso that tomorrow, Paris gets to wash up. Molly smiles victoriously. Then a small cloud passes across her face. "There's a dishwasher, right?" A wail comes from the car: Phoebe is awake. As the screen door slams behind me, I hear Molly call, "Mummy, how many dishes will I have to wash?" — Meghan Cox Gurdon, who lives in Washington D.C., writes as much as her young family will permit. Watch for her new NRO column, "The Fever Swamp" starting this autumn. |
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