Raphael has a mouse. It lives in his room, and he tells me it’s a happy and nice mouse. He seems very sincere about this. Every night as I tuck him in bed he jumps a little and exclaims, “A Mouse!”
“Really?” I say, “Where?”
“Unner dere!” He points under his crib. He’s so excited that night after night I get nervous and look for the mouse. Of course there is no mouse. If there were a mouse in our house it would be down in the kitchen, with the food. Right? Also, if there were vermin among us, our beautiful, stupid cat Claire would be on the job. I mean, I’ve mentioned here how she’s a heck of a huntress. Why, she struggles mightily every night to rid our house of the menace of the goldfish. Surely if there were a mouse she’d be aware of it, sniffing around and running into walls in an attempt to catch it. Right?
Yet every night Raphael pronounces the existence of his mouse. He seems so sure…
Then again, Raphael is sure there’s an elephant in the field near our house, with all the horses. Every time we drive past the horses, after the ritual goo-bye, Raphi shouts out, “Ewphant!”
“You see an elephant? Where?” I ask, just a touch worried. He gazes serenely out the window, raising one arm as a trunk and making elephant noises in reply. Ok, maybe he just has an active imagination. Maybe he’s starting to have imaginary friends; only in his case it’s an imaginary menagerie. Max had an imaginary robot for a while, named John. That was a hairy time for a while. I was always stepping or sitting on John, who was not as forgiving as you might imagine a pretend robot would be.
But I think there’s something else to this mouse thing. After all, it comes up every night at bedtime. I’m hoisting him into his little crib-prison. I’m saying bedtime prayers, smoothing covers over him. I’m telling him I love him and good night. This whole time he’s casting desperately around for anything that will stop me from leaving him to the horror of sleep. He’s tried saying “Mama? Mama? Mama?” but he has no follow-up question and has learned that that doesn’t hold me long. So instead he’s come up with this mouse thing. It’s a bedtime delay.
Max used to be a master at the bedtime delay. He’d wait until I was almost out the door, then call out,
“Mama?” Now, mothers will understand how this feels. You’re almost out, you’ve gone through the whole bedtime routine, the finish line is in sight. For me, it takes all the strength within me not to spin around and snarl “Sleep, you wicked child!! Question me not, but lie there and SLEEEEEEEP!” But I’ve got gentle bedtime fantasies to uphold, so I’d usually say sweetly through gritted teeth,
“Yes, honey?” To which he would respond with,
“Mama? Um, Mama? How… um… how…” picture him here, looking around frantically for anything to talk about, “how…old…how old were you…how old were you when you painted this wall?”
Or some such vital question.
So I’m sure there’s no mouse. Every night, as I furtively peek under the crib I tell myself, “There’s no mouse. This is silly.” But every night I still have to check.
He’s good.