Conversations with a 4-year-old at bed time

"Dada," he says. And the night could go anywhere from here.

It’s late. Definitely past 10 p.m. on a school night.

I can hear our girls running around, my wife trying to corral them and get them to wind down. But all five of us in the family are, to varying degrees, night owls.

We gain energy, paradoxically it seems, when we should be getting tired. On weekends and during the summer, it’s fine. On weekdays during the schoolyear, even though our kids don’t have to get up until 8:15 a.m. to make it on time, it’s a constant battle between body clocks and actual time.

I’m in with our 4-year-old, who has decided for the past 18 months or so that his bed time — and pretty much everything else, for that matter — is strictly my domain. It’s a major “daddy phase,” and our girls went through it, too.

It’s an exhausting honor. I’m ready for it to end, and yet I’m not.

Someday this is the only thing you’ll want, I remind myself constantly.

In this moment, though, I am tired. We’ve already gone cover-to-cover with one of the many giant books he has in his room, a volume about extraordinary animals. He has snuggled in next to me on his bed, had his customary cup of milk, and his eyes are closed.

Once he falls asleep, he sleeps hard. Having done about 99% of his last 500 bed times, I’m confident that he’s either asleep or on the verge of it.

“Dada,” he says.

I look over. His eyes are wide open.

“Do zombies have hair?”

To say I am unprepared for this question does not quite do it justice. Do zombies have hair? I think for a few seconds, scanning my memory for images of zombies. I think I remember zombies with hair. But I try a safe answer first.

“I’m not sure. Do you think they have hair?” I reply.

He’s 100% sure they do, and he is looking for confirmation.

"I’m pretty sure you’re right,” I offer. I’m about to remind him that zombies aren’t real and that he doesn’t have to worry about them.

“But zombies aren’t real,” he says, beating me to it.

He settles back in.

---

A couple of minutes pass. I slowly reach for my phone, thinking it’s safe to check on any external reality I’ve missed in the last 45 minutes.

“Dada,” he says. “Is a giant squid bigger than our house?”

He loves knowing the size of animals, particularly from the book we had just read. Are they as tall as his bedroom? What do they eat?

“A goliath bird-eating spider doesn’t usually eat birds,” he reminds me, stating a fact that has somehow become very important to him from the book.

I get the book back out, turn to the page about the giant squid, and see that they can be as big as 40 feet. That seems impossible, but I’m not the expert here.

I do some quick math, first trying to guess how tall our story-and-a-half Minneapolis home is and then how long it is.

“A giant squid is taller than our house, if it was stretching that way,” I tell him confidently. “And it’s probably about as long as our house.”

We both take a moment to process the idea of a squid the size of our house.

“I don’t think I want to go to the ocean,” he says.

---

It’s a different night, but the same routine.

He’s getting into that tired zone. I’m doing mental calculations. If he falls asleep soon, and the girls are already close to asleep, maybe I can get to bed in time to sleep for seven hours. At least six-and-a-half.

No fewer than six? I can get by with six, but seven would be better.

“Dada,” he says. “Am I going to die?”

Oh boy.

I wasn’t ready for the zombie question, but this is an entirely different level of unprepared.

I start to think as quickly as possible. How much of what I have thought about over the years should I tell him? Is it normal that he would ask this question? (Turns out: Absolutely!) What part of the truth is enough, and what is too much?

“Wow, that’s a big question,” I say, trying to buy some time.

Our girls have wondered and asked about death, too, I just don’t remember it being when they were this young. I remember being aware of death when I was a child, especially as it pertained to older relatives dying.

But the sinking feeling of my own mortality came much later, slamming into me the hardest when I was about 20.

Our kids have been exposed to it earlier — not personally, necessarily, but as a function of the pandemic.

They heard about people dying — even kids their age, however unlikely that was. They knew that we were trying to stay safe, trying not to get sick because getting sick could mean very sick, which could mean …

I wonder sometimes about the worry they took on, the anxiety that spilled out of us and onto them. How we might have done some things differently. How a lot of us were scrambling to get by — nowhere near the best versions of ourselves, hoping to give our kids whatever energy we could muster.

“Dada,” he asks again, “am I going to die?”

I’m jolted back to the present. There’s no more time to stall.

“You know, buddy,” I begin, “every living thing does have to die. But that’s not something you have to worry about for a long, long time. You’re still very young and you will be alive for a long time.”

“Are you going to die?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “But I’m still (sort of) young, too. I try not to think about things that worry me before it’s time to worry about them.”

(A great example of this came just the other day in Target, of all places. When I arrived, the self-checkout was closed and only one regular register was open. The line was seven people deep. I was in a hurry, trying to grab a few things for his belated fourth birthday party.

I started to worry that I’d be stuck in a long line and be late getting home. But because I had been pondering this idea, and had written the part about death — not on the page yet, but in my mind — my perspective quickly shifted.

You don’t have to worry about this right now. By the time you’re ready to check out, things could be completely different.

And they were. I sailed through quickly and made it home with plenty of time to spare.

As someone who likes to have control over things, who is guilty of sometimes living too far into the future, who is trying to let go of this feeling, that moment felt important.)

“I love you,” I say. “Do you have any more questions?”

He doesn’t answer, but he rolls over onto his stomach. Sleep can’t be far away.

---

I start nodding off on his bed. The days are never short, and this one has been particularly long.

“Dada,” he says.

I open my eyes again. They sting a little. I wonder what else he could possibly want. Another glass of milk? Another trip to the bathroom? Another book? Another impossible question?

“I have a surprise for you,” he says.

My breathing slows down. My heart grows. He’s already said this many times lately. It’s his new thing, and it’s the best.

Sleep will come soon enough, and it doesn’t matter if it’s in five or 15 minutes.

“Close your eyes,” he says, and I dutifully follow his request.

He kisses me on the cheek. That’s the surprise every time.

It never gets old.

(Photo by Dima Solomin on Unsplash)