I Call Her 'Baby B'

It's the end of a week, and I am tired. There have been too many responsibilities this week, with more to follow. I'd like to drink myself into a warmth that's eluded me the past several days, and then fall into bed and get lost in soft sheets that precipitate a falling away. Instead, I am faced with, "Mommy! I don't want chilli with cheese....I want ramen noodles!"
My nerves go into overload/red death mode: "You asked me to make chilli dogs and tater tots! Since I took you to the pool and cooked what you asked for, you do NOT get to whine in my presence!"
"Fine! I'll just make the ramen noodles myself!"
My eyeball fixes its laser beam on the offending child, and she starts to skulk off to her room instead of making good on the high-pitched words. They may as well have been stomped onto my dermis with feet communicating in morse code-with stiletto heels. My nerves are raw and shredded and screaming to eradicate all whining life forms within a ten mile radius. Luckily, my typically loving progeny is fairly intelligent and senses that there may an unhappy end in sight if she does not disappear quickly. I hear her snivelling as she skinks towards her room.
When blood has stopped pounding in my ears, I walk by her open door and see her hunched on her bed, talking quietly to her latest lovie. There are many of these creatures, in all stages of glory: some are new and are still soft and lovely to hold; others are missing patches of fur and have long lost the luster in their plastic black and brown eyes. But they exist in a pantheon of babies who will always matter. Her frantic, "Mommy, where's Pookie?!? I can't let her sleep in the dark by herself!" shows her dependence on all the little stuffed creatures given to her over the years. I never developed such sentimental, childish, typical attachements, and neither did my other children. Such a dependence on stuffing and buttons and sparkles is a revelation to me.
I listen at the door, ears attuned to her baby babble. A 45 lb eight year old sits wrapped in her pink and yellow blanket. She's so small, so immature, but I've nurtured her role as youngest-I still call her 'Baby'. "It's ok, you can have all the wamen noodles you want. Mommy will make it for you." She refers to gerself as she murmers these words of comfort; she holds her precious lovie tightly, and only when I clear my throat does she look up.
Large red-rimmed eyes ask the question before I hear her say, "Mommy, are you mad at me?" Plaintive, waifish-these words just don't do justice to the pathos which she squeezes from every breath as she asks me to reaffirm my love. It's a tradition we seem to need to go through, she and I.
"No, Baby. I just want you to understand that it's unreasonable to expect me to keep making extra food when I've made what you asked. You can't demand things on a whim, then be unreasonable when you don't get them."
"Mommy, what's a 'whim'?"
I search for the best way to answer this and keep her mind focused on the topic at hand. It's a stretch.
"A whim means that you wanted one thing, and then for no good reason, you changed your mind just because you can. It usually involves creating extra work for other people."
"Like you?"
"Yes, precious, like me."
"Mommy, are you mad at me?" This kid's good......
"Well, I was. But now I just want you to learn that it's selfish to always expect everything to go the way you want it to." Hmmm.....
"So can I have ramen noodles?"
"No, ma'am you can't." My anger has long since lost hold, and I answer her with forebearance.
"Ok, Mommy. I love you." She smiles and blinks at me from under bangs that have grown too long.
"I love you too, Baby B!" For a second more, I watch as she returns to her make believe. Then, turning, I slip into my bedroom, quietly close the door, and shake my head while I smile to myself. I am warmer and strangely content.