The Fart Trap
It’s bedtime for Mykenzie and a bathroom war breaks out. I can hear the glass shower door being pushed and pulled. Judah laughing. Luca asking him to stop. Right beside Mykenzie’s bedroom where 3-year-old FOMO is real. She can hear The Brothers and she wants in.
Eventually, they stop, Mykenzie backs down and climbs into bed and I escape her room in pursuit of answers.
When I ask the boys what was happening, Luca tells me that Judah farted in the steaming hot shower right as they changed over shower occupants, and as Luca got in, he got smacked in the face with Judah’s fart and was trying to escape. Judah pushed against the shower door. Luca pushed back. “Shower door being pushed and pulled”, I reminisce. It adds up.
Judah is instantly begging for mercy. “I didn’t fart”, he pleads. “Ok, but was Luca trying to get out of the shower and you were stopping him?” I question. “Yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh”… he coyly responds.
Right then. “Well…” I start to enquire, but before I know it, these words escape my mouth:
“did you trap him with your fart or not mate?”
And just like that, another sentence I had no idea I would ever need to say has escaped my mouth.
Bedtime routine is a thing in our house. When Mykenzie was little, I played this internal game of “Chilled Mum/Control Mum”. Chilled Mum was so cruisy, went with the flow, went out and did stuff and was chill about baby taking the lead. Control Mum usually emerged after a moment in Chilled Mum Land where things went to custard and Chilled Mum got overwhelmed. Control Mum timed naps and monitored time between feeds and didn’t leave the house unless it was for something that could fit between naps and feeds… so didn’t really leave the house…
During an extended period in Control Mum Land, a routine was implemented. And soon enough we worked out that having a routine created certainty for all of us. The kids knew when there would be windows of baby sleep for them to have the exclusive attention of Mal and me. And we all knew when it was likely that I would/might/could leave the house.
Importantly, we all knew what time bedtime was and that this meant we all needed to exercise self-control for a few moments of quiet so Mykenzie would think we were all asleep… for whoever was in the room (Mal or me) going through the steps of the bedtime routine, we were preparing for the “stealth room exit”, which either went smoothly or horrendously. Horrendous ended in the crawl or slug slide out of sleeping baby’s room because even if they are asleep, all babies have a spirit level that pings when they detect motion.
If you were the other parent on the outside, you were doing all the “shushing”.
“Shush”, don’t stamp your feet so loudly on the floorboards.
“Shush”, don’t wrestle your brother in the lounge room.
“Shush”, don’t yell underneath Mykenzie’s room.
“Shush”, “Shush”, “Shush”.
Everyone had a role to play. And if you weren’t in the room for the bedtime routine, you were involved in the Silent Game. Statues. All the quiet things.
For all the challenges having a routine brought about, the certainty was incomparable. There’s loads of research on humans and the love of structure.
But in our house, there has always had to be two routines. The one when we are a full-family and the one when we are a micro-family.
One week in the fortnight, Mykenzie’s bedtime routine is filled with plenty of willing participants wanting to be a part of bath time or story time or goodnight kisses. During full-family-mode, everyone knows that once Mykenzie is in bed for the night, the level of engagement changes and we can do things that the boys love to do. But while we get her ready, there’s a lot of “shushing”. When you read ‘a lot’ of shushing, whatever you’re thinking that could be, double it. Then multiply it by 1000. A lot.
On the alternate week, it’s just Conor home, unless he’s working, and at 17, toddler bedtime routines are not really his jam. And that’s entirely understandable. So, Mal and I fill the void of questions like “Luca will come back and he can come with me to my bath?” with absolute attention saturation, fully focussed on Mykenzie. Bedtime is sacred on micro-family weeks, and Mal and I are all in. There’s no “shush” required during this week.
So why does a Fart Trap story lead to a blog about sleep routines? After all, it’s perfectly normal that brothers, 11 years old and 13 years old, would engage in a Fart Trap. At least I’m telling you it is. And Luca’s reaction was entirely what you would expect – “LET. ME. OUT!” And bedtime with a toddler is a wild ride for anyone.
The difference for a not quite nuclear family is the change in practices and environment controls needed from one week to the next. The ‘routine’ that doesn’t quite fit the structure of its own definition.
When I put myself to bed not long after asking the Fart Trap question of Judah, I got to thinking about how that question came to escape me. Here’s how I reason with it:
Bedtime with a toddler can break anyone. Even the family who have had a routine for a long time and every possible control in place to make bedtime the best experience it can possibly be. Facts.
I was never Chilled Mum. I’m still not. It was so fleeting that, at best, we can call it ‘moments of chill’.
I think Control Mum found her place because there were so many factors I couldn’t control. The comings and goings of stepkids and moving from high intensity to silence from one week to the next was so magnified with a baby in the house. I bunkered down on the one thing that felt within my grasp to manage.
My stepkids have adjusted phenomenally to the “shushing”. But it’s not something I’ll miss them hearing me do as Mykenzie grows.
There’s an overcompensation on micro-family weeks. Mal and I go all in with Mykenzie to fill the void that not having The Brothers home creates. Rightly or wrongly, we shut off from the world for this window and pour in on our little girl.
I have two older brothers. And it still astounds me how synonymous “boys” and “farts” are.
Judah definitely farted. I just know he did.
As Mykenzie grows, I am learning that I now have a two-directional “shush”. At night, the boys hear the “shush” until we all exhale with victory to have defeated a sleep-defiant toddler. And in the mornings, Mykenzie hears the “shush” as I encourage her to let growing boys sleep in, while we wait for the sun to rise.
By definition, routine is about regularity. Doing the same thing/s with regularity. In our family, we do that differently from one week to the next. So, forgive me if the pursuit of Fart Trap justice overcomes me when bedtime routine, in our semi-irregular setting, doesn’t go so well.
The takeaway for the boys, I suppose, is that if you must fart, do it quietly.
“Shush”.