the woosh master

I am the master of the woosh. That is, I am the wooshmaster. Which is to say, nobody does the woosh better–in fact, nobody else does it even satisfactorily.

My kids will not go to bed without it, unless coerced, or unless they’re mad at me. So about half the time.

I can hear you thinking to yourself, “dug, what the hell’s a woosh?”

Don’t think I can’t hear it. I can totally hear it. And don’t be embarrassed, it’s a normal question. Few people know the way of the woosh.

My kids have varying degrees of attachment to the woosh. And Rick S likes the woosh too. I’ll get to that.

Maddy, my 15 year old, calls it a wooshy woosh. It means she gets in bed, and then I take each of her blankets individually, and one at a time, woosh it onto her bed, until each blanket is properly wooshed and in place. Then I check for monsters in the usual places, make sure the cd of her uncle Dan’s piano music is re-started, and I’m on my way. Unless it’s “little chat” time, which takes a little longer, where we talk politics (seriously), sports, relationships, whatever.

Ian is 13, and goes through woosh phases. I used to woosh Ian, but he’s grown pretty independent, and now likes to do his own wooshing. Although, last night, he kept interrupting my Maddy woosh, and then requested a woosh of his own. I’m encouraged.

Holden, who is 10, usually wants a woosh before he goes to sleep, but will often drift off without one. That doesn’t let me off the woosh hook though, because Holden wanders through our room at least once a night to use the bathroom, and on his way out, he wakes me up and asks for a post-bathroom-visit woosh. I oblige, though I woosh all 3 blankets at once, since he’s sleepy and doesn’t know the difference.

Nobody wooshes like I do. Rick S knows this, because once when we were in a hotel in Moab, I got up to pee in the middle of the night (separate queen beds, case you were wondering), and noticed that he was covered only in the bedsheet, no blanket, and he was all curled up and shivering. I grabbed a couple big blankets and gave him a first class woosh.

In the morning, he woke up, noticed the blankets, and said “Um, dude. Did you WOOSH me last night?”

Well, yeah. Geez, there’s no pleasing some people.