In improv, I learned a writing game where two people pass a sheet of paper back and forth, each one taking a turn writing a line of dialogue. A third person intermittently calls out bits of stage direction or dialogue, hopefully designed to cause a change in the action of some kind.
If there are many pairs playing, and one caller, it makes for an interesting collection of scenes since each scene will contain a predictable set of pivot points in a predictable order, but the filling between will vary widely.
I’ve used this game in teaching improv classes, and in teaching writing to business school students (to liven things up). I have a favorite set of action promoting phrases that I use, based on my experience when the game was taught to me:
What do you mean by that?
(somehow someone makes physical contact)
(someone laughs)
I need you
(sound of glass breaking)
the truth is
I know exactly what we should do
There’s another version of the game where the caller gives lines of description while writers each quickly write a monologue. I’ve used the same list in enough different situations that the phrases have undue weight in the library of my brain:
Do not disturb/and then it happened/the train rumbled through/the car door slammed
Last night, we had our “and then it happened” moment.
It would have been nice if going to sleep for Jonah meant that we could just put him down to bed with a “Do not disturb” sign on the door. But Jonah was disturbed, and there was no getting around it.
The heat. The heat. The heat. No one has air conditioners in Oakland. And the last few nights, the boy became less and less interested in going to bed. Our tricks were wearing thin. He’d become accustomed to the meaning of the crib mattress against back and each time his body assumed that position… you know.
The night he vomited, that certainly threw things off. Because that night he was up past 9, and brought into bed with us, which, even in the heat, seems preferable to sleeping alone, for him.
I, on the other hand, am less and less able to get any sleep at all if he’s in the bed with us. Even if he’s totally still. I just can’t relax.
Last night, the rocking, the singing, the begging, borrowing — what Dr. Sears euphemistically heralds as “parenting the baby down” — nothing was working.
And let me be clear: By rocking, I do not mean some kind of Saturday Evening Post cover gently swaying in the glider chair while we cuddle and coo. No. Rocking means the boy is on a pillow in our arms, squirming as if to break from prison and wailing while whichever one of us on duty at that moment is swinging our entire upper torso back and forth, fast or slow, jiggling up and down, singing, shushing, moaning. Until it feels like our wrists are breaking or our souls are breaking and we call for back-up.
It’s not pretty.
We tried a new level of bargaining. Put him down in the crib, both of us lying on the floor next to it, moaning, singing, shushing while we nearly fell asleep ourselves like Dorothy in the poppy field only with an alarm beeping (crying) and you can’t turn it off.
We give up, take him into living room, hold him on my lap so I can eat dinner. Let him watch TV. He’s quiet, calm. Dare I say? Quietly victorious.
9:15 p.m. We try again.
It’s clear the crying is never going to end.
I’m jiggling him with one hand, attemtping to flip open the Jodi Mindell book my pediatrician had recommended with the other. Hand off baby, find three page synopsis of sleep routine. The dreaded CIO.
While clearly, we had not followed her earlier steps about following an established routine, desperation was leading.
We turned to the chart. Put him down, set timer. 5 minutes. He cried the whole time. Scott went in, reassured without picking him up for 1 minute. Exit. Still crying. Set timer, 5 more minutes. One minute “reassure” (one wonders at this point: reassuring for whom?). Set timer 10 minutes. We’re doing dishes, cleaning up, because I’m hosting a baby shower the next day, don’t you know?
Eight minutes pass. Nine…
…and then it happened.
Silence.
I worried he was dead. Of course. Scott said No. And don’t go in there.
Reset the timer for 10 more minutes.
And then I check on him.
He’s asleep, on his side. It’s too dark to make out whether it’s his thumb, a number of fingers, or his whole fist wedged in his mouth.
When he sleeps next to me, he sleeps on his side. My heart cringes a little. I exit.
No emergencies follow. No freight train rumbling through, no car door slamming. Just sleep. His.
I still have insomnia and so am up at 12:30 a.m. for his awake and feed. But it’s short, only 10 minutes, maybe less, and then he’s sleepy again. He protests with a few squawks and hiccupy-cries, and curls onto his side. I rub his back, and he falls asleep again.
Until 5 a.m. — or so Scott tells me, since he was the one who got up to feed Jonah, letting me sleep. Then Jonah slept another hour.
I couldn’t be more shocked.
We will be doing this again tonight. The book warns it gets worse before it gets better, because next time he’ll let us know he’s REALLY serious about not sleeping. Friends with babies in Jonah’s age group have warned me that CIO is not a one-time solution but has to be done again periodically if baby goes off the tracks. A reset button.
I’m not advocating for what I’ve done. But for one night, it felt like the right thing. It feels like a mommy milestone, not a punishment (for either of us!) but an unpleasant training.
This morning he was all smiles as usual.
And I continue on in my muddling middle-ish way.
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