Daddy's Jingly Thigh
Baby Dog and I have fallen into a cosy night-time routine wherein after she has been fed and bathed and diapered and put in her sleepwear and breastfed and diapered again and laid down to sleep and then cried for a long enough time that it’s clear to everyone she won’t be going to sleep anytime soon, I sit her on my lap in the rocker next to her crib and rock her and sing to her until she’s calmed down, and then shush her to sleep. The selections are generally from (of course) John Prine, the Clancy Brothers, and The Pogues. Once I tried something from Pantera, but that didn’t really work out well for anybody.
When we first started this routine, the default position for her was on my left shoulder, facing me. She would slap my shoulders and play with my beard and try to find out where the holes in my ear went, and then eventually nestle her head on my shoulder and fall asleep. Since then, we’ve evolved a bit. Usually, she starts off perched on my lap facing away from me, with my hand on her belly and her hand reaching up backwards for the beard. At first she had to be shifted back to the shoulder position before she’d fall asleep, but now she’ll doze off either way, as circumstance and tiredness dictate.
Somewhere in the course of all this, she discovered that if she slapped my right thigh, she’d be rewarded with a jingly sound. That’s because I keep my keys and a few of my lucky coins in my front right jean pocket. I didn’t even notice this had become a ritual, or that she knew to expect the jingly sound until a night or two back. It was hot out and by bedtime I was in my bathrobe, wishing the heat away. When Baby Dog got bored of sitting and being sung to, she leaned forward and slapped my right thigh. She was clearly puzzled when my bathrobe emitted no jingly sound. Why is Daddy’s thigh not jingling? Is it broken? Did the batteries wear out? Another day, another mystery, at eleven months of age.
So, tomorrow we head off for a road trip to Saint Babs. I’ll try to post tomorrow, but it’s going to be either in the midst of furious packing before we leave or in the dregs of road exhaustion after we get there. Either way, don’t expect too much.
When we first started this routine, the default position for her was on my left shoulder, facing me. She would slap my shoulders and play with my beard and try to find out where the holes in my ear went, and then eventually nestle her head on my shoulder and fall asleep. Since then, we’ve evolved a bit. Usually, she starts off perched on my lap facing away from me, with my hand on her belly and her hand reaching up backwards for the beard. At first she had to be shifted back to the shoulder position before she’d fall asleep, but now she’ll doze off either way, as circumstance and tiredness dictate.
Somewhere in the course of all this, she discovered that if she slapped my right thigh, she’d be rewarded with a jingly sound. That’s because I keep my keys and a few of my lucky coins in my front right jean pocket. I didn’t even notice this had become a ritual, or that she knew to expect the jingly sound until a night or two back. It was hot out and by bedtime I was in my bathrobe, wishing the heat away. When Baby Dog got bored of sitting and being sung to, she leaned forward and slapped my right thigh. She was clearly puzzled when my bathrobe emitted no jingly sound. Why is Daddy’s thigh not jingling? Is it broken? Did the batteries wear out? Another day, another mystery, at eleven months of age.
So, tomorrow we head off for a road trip to Saint Babs. I’ll try to post tomorrow, but it’s going to be either in the midst of furious packing before we leave or in the dregs of road exhaustion after we get there. Either way, don’t expect too much.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 10:05 PM
1 Comments:
It amazes me what peaks their curiousity. Sometimes the things we totally pay no attention to are their most prized puzzle to conquer.
Post a Comment
<< Home