I <MIGRATE> NJ: Smiling Like Sisyphus with an Armful of Stuffies

Most week days, my morning starts at 5:08. That’s when my phone dings to alert me that Tara’s walking down our driveway as her even earlier trek into the city begins.

That timing works out well for me though because I have a lot to prepare before the daily Great Migration begins. I brush my teeth, clean my sleep apnea mouth guards, shower, get dressed, pour milk, turn on Margo’s preferred lights, and if I’m lucky, the yells of “Daddy come here!” don’t echo too desperately over the monitor until 6am. That’s when Margo’s Yoto Player clock clicks over from a moon to a sun, at which point she instantly switches to a more enthusiastic shout of “Daddy! Sun is out… where are you??”

Based on this video, I guess we just started letting Margo sleep with stuffed animals six months ago, but sometimes it feels like an eternity.

Margo’s not always her most joyful self first thing in the morning. It’s like she’s burdened by a mission from God: singularly focused, a little paranoid, and dismissive of nearly all chipper dad pleasantries.

Exodus for her is leading all her crib stuffed animals, any books I let her cuddle overnight, her blue blanky, and the pink towel she randomly insists on sleeping with from the confines of her room to the freedom of the living room couch… where she then completely ignores them as she chugs milk and watches a little TV (which lately is brief installments of the movie “K-Pop Demon Hunters.”)

Margo and her plush menagerie.

Some days she’s a team player and will carry two to three stuffies. Most mornings she expects me to carry them all by myself. Occasionally, I also have to carefully balance my little Moses in my arms along with her whole plush menagerie (and I definitely get smited if I try to set her down when a doll inevitably drops and needs to be rescued.)

The fact that she almost never acknowledges any of the dozens of items that are part of our daily diaspora makes the whole exercise feel as arbitrary and punishing as Sisyphus being forced to roll the same boulder up the same hill every day for the rest of time.

Lamby, Spider-Gwen, Bingo, Bluey, Dolly, Stuffie Mac & Cheese, Princess Margo, baby, other baby and the rest of the gang just sit on the couch ignored, until it’s time for the second leg of the Great Migration and Tara or I return them to Margo’s crib before bed time.

The Great Migration back to Margo’s room begins.

Lately, the 60ish minutes between Margo’s wake up and daycare drop off are emotionally treacherous for her and mentally exhausting for me… and then I still have a full long day of work.

Yesterday, I found myself hoping the time would pass more quickly, so I could get to the sweet relief of my solo train ride soundtracked by David Byrne sooner, but then I remembered that I try to always picture Sisyphus with a smile. Like Albert Camus suggested, surely at some point in eternity Sisyphus found happiness in the absurdity of rolling that dumb rock up his mountain. I bet he had some pretty sick views walking back down to the bottom to do it all again.

In between meltdowns yesterday, Margo and I had an epic dance party in the elevator at her school. It was brief, but absurdly awesome. I’m lucky that most mornings I get that chaotic hour with Margo (and even luckier that my mother-in-law is willing to take on her rambunctious granddaughter at 6:15 on the days I have to go in early too.)

The gang back where they belong for bed time and ready to roll up the mountain again in the morning.

If we spend all our time hoping to get to our next chapter as quickly as possible, we’ll find our best stories are over before we even had a chance to read them. That sounds way worse than an eternity of the same monotonous tasks every morning.

So today when I head into Margo’s room, I’m going to have a big smile on my face and I’m going to keep grinning as I roll all my stuffing-filled boulders to their pointless destinations.

My Song of the Day: “Sisyphus” by Andrew Bird

This is from pre-sleeping with stuffies times, but I love how absurd it is. After a long struggle to fall asleep, Margo ended up like this and I had to make the difficult decision to adjust her so she wouldn’t be freaked out when she woke up in the morning.