Last night, before L went to bed, I’d put in a Nina Simone CD, figuring it was calming enough to play in the evening.
There are some videos of Nina on YouTube. Here’s one of her singing “I loves you, Porgy,” but not the utterly calm version I have on CD. And here’s a very sweet claymation video set to “My baby just cares for me “
Little did I know.
A few minutes later, while trying to put the Girl to sleep, I began the CD again. She wasn’t crying, but she wasn’t settling down. I rocked her, walked her, bounced her gently, talked to her — all the tricks, but she was just not completely calming down.
When track six — “I loves you, Porgy” — began, instant calm. So I did the logical thing: hit repeat and put the Girl to sleep by playing one of the loveliest songs ever…about fifteen times.
Who would have thought it was possible for a little, sweet, burpy seven-month-old to sleep a full twelve hours, enabling parents to get work done and get eight hours’ sleep?
Who would have imagined that a body used to significantly less sleep can sleep a full eight hours without the whole system going haywire?
Who would have thought it would only happen one night?
As of Thursday afternoon, K and I are homeowners.
And it was surprisingly easy. We’d heard so many horror stories about people buying houses — troubles with financing, troubles with closing, troubles with the realtor, troubles with everything. We literally had no issues at all. We found the house, made an offer, waited for the counter offer, accepted the counter offer, set a date for closing, then closed the house.
I suppose it helped that the owner now lives in Nashville and was simply interested in getting rid of the house and not terribly worried about how much money he was making. He was just losing money, I guess, paying double mortgages.
So now we’re slowly moving in, and the real work begins.
Last year: Landis, Ulrich, Basso.
This year: Vinokourov, Moreni, and Rassmussen.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch the Tour again. What’s the point? It’s no longer a contest of who has the most endurance, who trained the most, who has the most — dare I use THE sports cliche? — heart.
It’s who can best hide his doping.
Anyone who wins a stage, a title, the Tour itself will now be immediately suspect.
When the girl is being put to sleep, she sometimes gets angry. Scratch that — furious. She can howl and scream and whimper endlessly when I’m the one trying to put her to sleep instead of K.
I usually just wait her out. She’ll literally scream and push and wiggle and cry until she literally passes out. While she’s doing this, I simply walk around the apartment, holding her close, and whispering sweetly (or as sweetly as I can manage while every last nerve in my body is being assailed simultaneously). There comes a time when she’s crying, then whimpering, then crying, then tumbling quietly toward sleep — until something disturbs her and reminds her, “Oh, yes, I am indeed irritated.”
That’s when toys can become landmines.
There are two beeping, flashing, musical toys that are particularly deadly. In one of them (a caterpillar that plays about four songs and flashes lights where one wouldn’t think caterpillars would have lights) has expired: the batteries are dead, and gosh darn it, I just can’t seem to remember to replace them. Touch it and it begins a loud, loud, loud symphony.
The porcupine is not much better. Give it a kick (as I did last night) and it begins talking to you. Nothing too intelligent, but you wouldn’t expect physics from a porcupine.
Last night, I kicked it dead center. I’m not sure which woke L: my sudden, frustrated gasp, or the porcupine.
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