Carpe Noctem! (Seize the Night!)

A few days ago I picked up a bracelet in a big box store. Nothing fancy, just a strand of pink beads on knotted twine, but it was the attached card that caught my eye. It featured a single word in bold print: Focus. The fact that I was so easily distracted by a shiny display of hopeful, new age-y sentiment was a clear indication I was lacking in the focus department. No doubt it was exactly the sort of slack-jawed, magpie reaction the product placement gurus were hoping for.

The bracelets might just have easily been for sale at a school fair, lovingly knotted by a ten-year old hippie jewellery entrepreneur fighting against the traditional bake sale machine. But here, in iridescent colours, pinned to simple cards promising Wisdom, Courage, or Good Health to the wearer, they were pretty enticing. Two lines of smaller print afforded some serene observations about clarity and focus. Had they added a third line it could have been passably decent haiku. I decided, having resisted the urge to get a Carpe Diem tattoo fifteen years ago, the bracelet may not magnetically draw focus to me, but it could be a useful daily reminder. Into the shopping cart it went along with the baby wipes, shower gel and laundry detergent. My immediate future would be focused and clean.

At the checkout, the cashier chatted while I unloaded all the bulky shopping onto the conveyer belt and off again into bags. That is, everything except the bracelet surely energetically radiating its vibes of clarity and focus. The cashier liked the humorous greeting card I was buying, stopping to open and read the punch line inside, which struck me as vaguely intrusive since it could have been one of the ones with a crude one-liner. Then we would both have felt awkward. I left the store with my shopping, the pink focus beads loose in the cart. Had I known they were there, it would have been theft, but, blissfully ignorant, I just gave the cart a hefty shove into the trolley rack and drove off.

I remembered the beads a good ten minutes later. I hadn’t bought them, bagged them, or even plucked them from a corner of the trolley, so now I faced a dilemma. Assuming they were still there, should I drive back to the car park, attempt to find the cart and return the bracelet to the store? Or forget about it, secure in the knowledge no willful crime had occurred? Perhaps another shopper would discover the bracelet and be more receptive to its focusing powers than I. Pondering its fate, I contented myself with the thought the cart stackers would find it, and promptly missed my next exit.

My lack of focus is directly tied in with our current effort to relieve our 4 year old of her overnight diapers. Summer arrived, school ended, and we were apparently so afraid of relaxation and an under-committed schedule that we moved straight into absolving our 2 year old of his pacifier, activating potty training, and tackling the nightly bed heists (where one or the other parent is held hostage) head on. What would one more bedtime challenge add to the mix?

As parents, you really do have to psych yourself up to end overnight diapers. Even when the accident odds are down to one in seven, the overnight diaper is simple insurance, and a general promise of uninterrupted sleep. Taking the plunge, the rubber under-sheet goes on the bed, the choice of pyjamas to be worn commando is celebrated, and praise for dry nights doled out in spades. We understand accidents might still happen, you reassure. So the nocturnal arrival of a small child by your bed poking you to report an accident wrenches you from R.E.M. sleep into instant action, hands moving like a ninja clock as you reach in all the wrong directions for clean sheets and clothes.

Unfortunately, when you wake up at 4a.m., the same small person curled up beside you bleating that she has wet the bed, your brain momentarily splits in half. One side is still reassuring the child in soothing tones and taking charge. The other half is assessing the situation and internally broadcasting panicked observations, “She’s in our bed! There’s no rubber cover! One side of my pajamas is soaking wet! Strip yourself! Strip the bed! Strip the weird fuzzy cover on the memory foam mattress!”

Luckily your children will be on hand to witness your gradual mental meltdown. They will leap out of bed at the sound of birdsong and wonder why you’re spooning sugar into the coffee machine, mixing up their names, and feeding the dog twice. If it only takes a few hazy, interrupted nights of pre-dawn baths and stripped beds to render a mass-produced pink bracelet an alluring amulet, it might only be weeks before I mistake pink flamingo lawn ornaments for lucky talisman. Time to focus on the task in hand: Carpe Noctem!