Little Books
Asher has always been extremely wary of new things. I suspect this can probably be traced directly to my pessimistic little genes, although itās impossible to say how much of his inborn skepticism exists due to cosmic chance, and how much is inherited Jewish trauma. Whatever the cause, itās been in there since he was a newborn. Heās always had a hard time flowing into new situations. He was happy on the changing table, and happy crawling on the floor, but the journey from one place to another caused an outsized amount of angst. Being in a onesie was okay, and being naked was okay, but the time it took for the onesie to go off or on was usually filled with screams.
Asherās aversion to transitions continued into toddlerhood. Other kids could jump right into playdates; he would always cling to me for at least twenty minutes before he could settle in. And he was very clear that me leaving his line of sight for more than an eighth of a second was strictly verboten. Violations of this rule, even for quick runs to the bathroom, were rewarded with tears, a light punch to my crotch (height-wise, this is where he could reach, so itās not as terrible as it sounds, although also, it was?), or both.
Truthfully though, I donāt really like transitions either.
When Asher was two, we bought a house a few blocks from the one weād been renting since he was an infant. I thought about my sonās entire little world turning upside down. Given that I found moving overwhelming, I fretted over how overwhelming he would find it. I felt more overwhelmed just thinking about it.
I decided to talk to our preschool director, Sarah, who was always generous with developmental advice. I explained how difficult transitions were for him, even though she was already well aware because his transition into school had required either Mike, our nanny, or me to attend school with him for the entire first month, training him to adjust by leaving him one minute earlier each day.
āI think you should try making him a little book,ā she said.
She explained that for young kids, making a little book before an event or a change that breaks down āwhatās going to happenā into simple, digestible chunks is a really useful tool.
āHow simple?ā I asked.
āVery, very simple,ā she responded.
I tried to take her advice. I sloppily stapled a few pages of blank paper together into a little book. Before committing to putting words in marker, I thoughtfully typed out a draft to share with Sarah for her approval. It was a couple of Microsoft Word pages long about everything Asher would need to know about moving, with details of the process and a lot of what, in retrospect, were my feelings about all of it. I emailed it to Sarah, who promptly responded as politely as possible with a message that was essentially, Ummmm, not this. She offered to write this one for me (probably sensing my complete incompetence) and asked me for a couple of photos of our family.
The next day she sent back a printable PowerPoint that read as follows: āMy family is moving to a new house. Some things will be the same, and some things will be different. I will have my same crib and my same toys, but I will be in a new room. I canāt wait to play with my mom and dad in my new house!!ā
That was it. That was the book.
I was shocked that it was this simple. Didnāt it need more? And how far in advance should I read it to him?
āIt does not need more,ā Sarah said. āAnd you can share it with him maybe three days before you move. Kids donāt think that far into the future. Donāt tell him too soon.ā
But didnāt he need to worry about it for longer? (I didnāt say this out loud but I thought it.)
I told her that part of our plan for move day was that the movers would arrive right after Asher went to school, so by the time his day was over, heād come back to the new house.
āDoes Asher need to come to the old house after school to say goodbye?ā I asked, like a full fucking idiot. āNo,ā she said, giving me a moment to realize that my lifelong moving ritual of staring mournfully around the home I was leaving, then leaning my head against the door frame for about ten minutes, thanking it for everything itās given me before walking out for the last time, might not be what a child needs or wants.
Three days before our move, as we settled in for our bedtime reading ritual, I pulled out the little book. I steeled myself for tears, a million questions, deep thoughts, rage, processing.
I read the book. It took one minute. He looked at me.
āDo you have any questions?ā I asked.
āLetās read another book,ā he said.
And that WAS IT.
We moved. The book somehow worked its magic because the day we moved in he seemed pretty much . . . unfazed? Or at the very least he didnāt need to drink booze the entire day to take the edge off like some people we know?*
This is how I discovered that the secret to life is little books.
Over the last few years, Iāve now written many. And what began as an exercise in parenting my child ended up becoming something closer to a meditation challenge for me: take any potentially anxiety-provoking situation, and imagine explaining it via the most calming haiku possible. In the process of grappling with what is making my son anxious, I get down to the nitty-gritty of what is making me anxious. And in trying to think of what might make him feel calm, Iām forced to explore what, if anything, after all these years (decades?), might take the edge off of my own endless anxiety. I have to adopt a different authorial voice: What would I sound like if I were a naturally tranquil human being? The answer, for better or worse, is ānot like myself.ā This is one of the reasons that being a parent (for me) feels like constantly being in some kind of ill-fitting drag. So much of parenting is adhering, as often as possible, to the persona of a steady, measured, self-confident, unafraid person. I am so infrequently able to do thisāor even to feel this. At least with the little books, and the amount of prep they require, I have the time and space to really get into the character of someone who truly believes things will be okay.
I also decided at some point to add drawings to my little books, instead of including photos. Mainly because my printer is usually out of ink? But also because, as I agonized over details, drawing forced me to slow down. The creation of each little book is a miniature emotional journey. Some are just lightly bumpy; some are fully turbulent. No matter what the conditions, I pour my soul into these books.
There was the book I wrote when Asher was three about getting on an airplane. All the airlines have a rule that once a child is two, they cannot sit in an adultās lap, and they must be in their own seat at takeoff and landing. We had to take a flight right after Asherās second birthday, before which Mike told me ominously about a work trip heād been on where he actually saw a mom straight-up removed from the plane before takeoff because she could not get her three-year-old child to sit in his own seat. I told him that if Asher was sitting next to me, I really believed heād be fine. I know Iāve said this several times throughout this book, but it bears repeating: I was an idiot.
After we settled onto the plane, I could not, for the life of me, get him to sit in his own seat. He clung to me, full panicky baby koala. The more I tried to separate us, the more distressed he became. The plane started taxiing, and I began sweating profusely. The flight attendant came over and asked if I could get him in his seat. I said I didnāt think so. āHow old is he?ā she asked. And thenāI am not proud of thisāI baldly LIED, like a lying little liar. I said he was ātwenty-two months.ā This was very dumb seeing as she could have easily checked and toooootally busted me, and I think we all know if thereās one thing flight attendants hate, itās people and their bullshit NONSENSE. But she didnāt check. Was this kindness on her part? Luck? White privilege? Most likely a mix of all of the above.
A year later, we were preparing for another flight east to visit our parents. I would wake up in the middle of the night, thinking of the mother whoād been booted off the plane. The idea of having to cancel so many plans, disappoint the grandparents . . . I couldnāt fucking take it. I started making a new little book like my life depended on it.
The book read as follows:
āWe are going to take a plane ride to NYC! The airport is big and it is fun to see the planes and the trucks that help them from the window. When we take off there will be some fun little bumps but we will get to see clouds out the window! When we land we will all get off the plane together and take a car to our hotel.ā
I added illustrations of us all getting in the car, and then of us approaching the ticket counter at JetBlue. I had developed a shorthand for drawing our family. Asher is a smiling little boy with a bowl cut. Mike is a square-jawed man with glasses. I draw Lucy, our nanny, with a smile and a ponytail. Iām a little oval face with glasses and a wild scribble of hairākind of like John Lennonās famous doodle of himself, but less whimsical and more unhinged.
As someone who in order to fly has to take a horseās dose of Xanax and drink wine nonstop from the moment I arrive at the airport till the moment I deplane, this was not an easy little book to write. I had to use basically the same amount of drugs to draw the plane as I do to fly in it.
Just like with the move book, Asher was interested when I offered to read it to him. And when I finished, he was utterly, completely unperturbed. In this situation, however, the real payoff would not be clear until we were butts in seats, flying.
I do hate to throw around a spoiler alert, but not only did he flyāSPOILER ALERT: HE GOT HIS WINGS. I didnāt even know they gave those out anymore, but THAT IS HOW WELL THE BOOK WORKED! And look, it was JetBlue and the wings werenāt a pin like when I was a kid, they were a just a puffy sticker, but we saved that sticker in a little box and I know exactly where it is and we will have it forever.
The success of my first little book (āMovingā) had felt like luckābut with the victory of this follow-up (āPlanesā), I truly felt like a wizard. I donāt know if thereās a German word for āparenting orgasm,ā and there probably shouldnāt be because the words donāt go super well together but you get what I mean. I was all in on little books.
Of course, as he grew older, the little books became more complicated. The rhythms of toddlerhood, in their repetitive simplicity, give way to a more layered life, as well as the unexpected.
When Asher was four, I noticed that he seemed to be drooling more than usual. Heād always been a drooler and Iād taken to outfitting him with jaunty little bibs, but as other kids seemed to be outgrowing this habit, I continued to see little wet dribbles falling onto his drawings. We took him to a pediatric ENT, who poked a camera up his nose and told us he should probably have his adenoids taken out. I didnāt even know what adenoids were, but apparently theyāre some kind of tonsil-adjacent unnecessary body part, and his were swollen, forcing him to mouth-breathe. It was not urgent, the very kind and patient doctor said, but over time, the effort to be properly oxygenated could take a bit of a developmental and physical toll. As one might expect from only being able to half breathe all the time. The surgery to remove adenoids is both common and outpatient, he assured us, but it did require that Asher go under general anesthesia.
He was four, and Mike and I didnāt want him going under anything. Still, after weeks of way too much googling, we resigned ourselves to the fact that the surgery needed to happen. I called the scheduler, fighting off a light heart attack.
Two months later, I set to work on the little book.
āOn Tuesday we are going to go to Dr. Liu, the funny nose doctor,* so he can do surgery on your nose and help you not be so sniffly all the time. We will all go together. Weāll say hi to him and then he will take you to a special room where heāll give you a special medicine that will make you sleep for a little while.ā
I drew Asher lying down on a little table with a smile on his face.
āWhen you wake up, Mom and Dad will be right there to take you home and we will eat chocolate ice cream.ā
I read this book to him three days before the surgery. He absorbed the information, once again, magically untroubled. After a bit more conversation in which we shared our mutual appreciation of Dr. Liuās unique comedic talents, we moved on.
The part I did not write into the little book was the part where my body was in an endless knot thinking of the moment where we would take him to change into his hospital gown and then would have to hand him over to Dr. Liu. He could now un-koala himself from me on a plane, but I could not fathom how we would leave him with a stranger to walk down a cold, scary hospital hallway into an operating theater. The thought of him being frightened and screaming for me, perhaps having to be held down before going under, was too much for me to take. I cal...
