Page 30 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition

“We should give your dad a report card on his napping skills. If he does good, he’ll get straight zzzzz’s!”

I can tell that Lucky and Summer don’t get the joke, but my delivery is so comical, they laugh politely anyway. They’re good kids. Shane shakes his head, gives each of his kids a kiss and then says to me as he passes by, heading out of the room, “See you at dinner. If you don’t quit before then.”

“You won’t get rid of me that easily. Hope you get somezzzzz’s!”

Summer and Lucky show me to the pantry, where their favorite afternoon snacks are kept. They are all packaged, organic, and Margo-approved. While they eat, I take a picture of them to send to their mother, rinse salad ingredients for dinner, and encourage them to make up more jokes about napping.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” Lucky barely manages to ask because he’s laughing so hard.

“To take a nap!” Summer says, giggling. “What’s black and white and red all over?”

Lucky’s head falls back before she’s even finished the sentence. “A nap!”

I guess this is how twins tell jokes to each other.

After I’ve wiped their mouths and hands with wet wipes and they’ve helped me to put the dishes in the dishwasher, Summer asks for pocket snacks.

“What are pocket snacks?”

“Snacks that I keep in my pocket. For later,” she explains, as if she shouldn’t have to explain this to me.

I look over at Lucky. “Is that a thing?”

He shrugs. “I don’t need them. But she gets really grumpy if she doesn’t have snacks.”

I don’t want to wake up Shane to ask if it’s okay for her to have double snacks, and gosh darn it, I want her to like me. “Okay, but just something small, like a packet of goldfish crackers.”

“But I’ll take Lucky’s too. I have two pockets—see? And he forgets that he likes snacks sometimes.”

“Hmmm. Okay, but only if you both brush your teeth first.”

“Why? I brushed them this morning!”

“Because you ate lunch and snacks. I like to brushmy teeth whenever I get the chance. Brushing your teeth is fun!”

Neither of these two little people is buying it.

Summer screws up her face and tilts her head at me as she slides snacks into her pockets. “Do you know any songs from musicals?”

“By the sea,by the sea, by the beautiful sea! You and me, you and me, oh how happy we’ll be! When each wave comes a-rollin’ in, we will duck or swim, and we’ll float and fool around the water. Over and under, and then up for air, Pa is rich, Ma is rich, so now what do we care? I love to be beside your side, beside the sea, beside the seaside, by the beautiful sea!”

Summer has barely brushed her rear upper quadrant by the time I reach the end of the first kid-friendly song that popped into my head, courtesy of all the ocean views. Without removing the toothbrush from her mouth, she says, “Again.”

“No ma’am. One song, that’s the deal. Finish brushing all of your teeth so we can do something else.”

Lucky is definitely the good twin.

“What are we going to do?” he asks.

“Well, that depends. Do you guys feel like being big right now or being little?”

“What can we do if we feel like being little?”

“I can read you a book, or you can play dress-up or some kind of game.”

“What can we do if we feel like being big?”

“Well, I heard that Summer hid your shoes and some other things, so maybe she can show us where she hid all of it and we can put everything back where it wasso everyone can find everything and that will make life easier for everyone.”