I shouldn’t be out here eating junk food and drinking beer.

J has chosen to sleep in the spare room this week. We’ve been reading the Chronicles of Narnia; I like to get her to smile by saying, “Juniper, from War Drobe in the land of Spareroom?” in a bad British accent.

We’re reading the Silver Chair, now, and just like I did when I tried and failed to read through the series when I was 10ish, we’ve been languishing. It feels like there’s a whole lot of nothing and then all the sudden you’re in the underground and there’s Prince Rillian strapped to the Silver Chair.

It’s been a hard week with her. I know, I know, that it’s the third week of First Grade and her little body is sprouting like a Marshwiggle so that hunger and sleep are the main culprits of our difficulties, and I’ve been trying hard to plan for and around that–when I pick her up on Wednesdays I know not to plan some big outing. On Wednesday she suggested we swing on the playground, we came home and she was ravenous for dinner, I gave her a bath and she could hardly keep her eyes open. We got into bed, I opened Silver Chair and she was out after the first sentence, before 8PM.

Yesterday, Thursday, we desperately needed to do some grocery shopping, one of those, our cupboards are full? but we need the one thing you eat for breakfast and we’re out of fresh fruit so we might as well spend our entire month’s grocery budget on ice cream kind of trips.

I knew she’d be hungry and I’m poor but she didn’t want any fast food–also who is this kid?–so we went to Bob Evan’s of all places, and I remembered right away the last time we went there was for my birthday, because she wanted pancakes and I wanted someone, anyone else to cook for me on my birthday, but the coffee was cold and the biscuit hard and our server abandoned us, and I totally forgot to tip him, which was an accident at first but then I qualified it by how miserable it all was, and I swore I wouldn’t return. And then the host sat us and wouldn’t you know it was the same server, and it all came right back. J was immediately too hungry for society. I was about to order food when our server asked us what we wanted to drink, but before I could, he interrupted to say there was a table ahead of us. I talked her down until the food came, and when it did she had a conniption, is that the right word?, that the apples that came with the caramel dip were green, not red. I talked her down, and into eating her piggy pancake that, no joke, looked like a demon, one of those bizarre parenting moments where you’re like, “please just eat your pancake covered in maple syrup with chocolate syrup eyes, so that you can have enough fuel to eat this caramel dip.”

The apples were nasty. I tipped the server 90% to make up for last time, swore again to never return. I can’t afford $3 for a quarter of a nasty apple and an 1/8 cup of caramel sauce, just to have a 15-minute meltdown about the color of the apple.

Tonight while we were brushing teeth J started singing a song that went, “I’m a burrito, I’m a burrito, I’m a burrito wrap.” She sang for 15 minutes straight, halfway through asked me to film it. I made the mistake of setting down my phone, which “ruined the song forever.” I was able to calm her down, but then she entered a two-hour squirm fest, moving and settling and scratching and hugging and adjusting and petting or tickling, then asking for itch cream and back scratches and repeat. It’s Friday, so I didn’t push hard for sleep.

The Silver Chair is getting spooky toward the end. Turns out it’s a story about gaslighting and coercive control. Do you ever read to your kid and think about something else? I didn’t know my brain was capable of reading aloud and simultaneously replaying the end of my marriage. What I was thinking is that I was very close to the magic working on me. I was thinking that it could have gone a lot worse, for a lot longer.

I wonder when that will stop.

It’s not a wonder that when my kid is having a slow burn tantrum about bitter green apples, that I have a reserve of patience unseen in this Age of Right Now, or that when we get home from the walk and I tell her its time to brush teeth and she says, “you didn’t say I had to brush teeth,” I can unwaveringly say, “I did say that, you may not have heard it or may not remember it but I did say it,” andbutyetalso when she says, “it’s all your fault you ruined the song forever,” I want to get on my knees, at her level, and say, yes, I’m so sorry I turned off the phone, you have every right to feel the way you feel.” God forbid–and I mean, please–that anyone ever tell her there is no sun.

I’m grateful for these moments.

I’m grateful for my tax return, I’m grateful for making good money selling stuff this month, I’m grateful for the reimbursement from my therapist’s biller, to be able to afford nasty-ass apples and demonic pig pancakes, and to be present with my kid, where ever her mood may swing.

Now to find some sustenance.