Bedtime Stories for Trying Times. A Parody.

This book hit me at the right time. Mid-2021. I felt overwhelmed. And sick of my apartment, which was a mess. The walls were closing in. I had worked from home from 2017-2019 and knew I hated it, and that was when I was the only one working from home. In 2020, we both started working from home. That was different.

In 2017, I’d kiss my hubby goodbye as he walked out the door, then do a light decluttering. Crank the music up, leave the door to my workspace open to let in the heat or the A/C from the living room (workspace has windows on two walls, no insulation, and no HVAC), then boot up and get to work.

By mid-2020, I wondered why I felt overwhelmed. My husband, now also WFH, sat in the living room. Since we both have jobs that require leading a lot of meetings, I couldn’t leave the door open and my workspace was always either too hot or too cold. I’d declutter in the morning, go into my “office,” shut the door, sit down, remember I had left a cup of tea brewing in the kitchen, get up, open the door into the living room – and it looked like a tornado had hit it. I read an article once that said that men literally don’t see clutter: scientists showed men and women photos of messy rooms; the women were appalled and the men did not see the clutter. We may have come a long way, baby, but our pre-Friedan mothers are still whispering unrealistic expectations about housekeeping into our lizard brains.

My sisters and I were big Frog and Toad readers when we were little. Their simple stories, easy to read, humorous, yet poignant, made them favorites for us. Frog and Toad were good friends; even though they sometimes got frustrated with each other or mad, they stayed friends. One of my friends once asked me how she would know when she had met the right guy. I said, he’ll do all these little things that annoy you and you’ll still love him and won’t feel the need to change him. And vice versa. (Plus, I would add now, he’ll have the ability to make you laugh like nobody else.) That’s Frog and Toad.

This parody totally catches Lobel’s style – while also encapsulating what it was like to live during the pandemic.¹

To quote: “Frog and Toad sat inside the house at their computers. ‘We have been sitting all day,’ said Frog. ‘Yes,’ said Toad. ‘We should go outside,’ suggested Frog. ‘Absolutely,’ agreed Toad. Frog and Toad sat at their computers. An hour passed.”

Whether Frog and Toad are trying to get the wi-fi to work, fool their Fitbit, deal with the sea of boxes from their online orders, pick someplace to order delivery from, figure out how to manage a 3 am panic attack, take the perfect selfie, keep from killing someone who is trying to take the perfect selfie with you, deal with debt, enjoy camping, or make a big holiday dinner all by themselves, they are so relatable.

Sometimes it makes you feel better to know that we’re all dealing with the same stuff. You’re not alone.

Even Frog and Toad struggle sometimes.

They can handle it. You can handle it.

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1. I say this as if none of us struggle with these things anymore. Post-pandemic, right? No problem! Hah! ↩︎