Sickly Morning, Cutesy Bedtime
It was a tough morning Chez Duvalier. I’m pretty much over my cold, or at least to the point where the symptoms are only a minor nuisance, but Mama Dog was feeling it most severely. She was feeling so porely that she wondered if I could stay home. An unfortunate thing about my job is that there’s no one else to do it if I don’t show up. I have two backup operators, but it’s on an on-call basis, and I can’t always count on them being available at the last minute. I have to plan my sick days in advance. My regular backup, La Dinga, happens to be in Europe right now. In fact, I later learned that she arrived in London this morning just half an hour after the bombings. She’s fine, but what a welcome to Blighty! After some vacillating, I decided the thing to do was call the other operator a bit before eight. If he could fill in, I’d stay home. If not, I’d have to go to work. He wasn’t in when I called, so I left a message saying I’d wait until 8:15 for him to call me back; he didn’t, so off I went to work.
I felt bad leaving Mama Dog feeling porely and having to take care of the baby besides, but I felt kind of painted into a corner. As it turned out, it was just as well I went to work. Mama Dog was feeling better by late morning and I never did hear back from the backup dude. Moreover, I had left off in the middle of a complicated assignment the night before. Even if I had been able to get somebody to pick it up for me, it would have been most flummoxing for them to figure out how to deal with the patchwork of almost-dones I had left behind.
When I got home, Baby Dog was finishing off a big meal and already starting to be cranky. She had skipped her afternoon nap, and Mama Dog reckoned she’d go right to sleep after a bath. While Mama Dog went out to grab us some takeout, I rocked the girl to sleep. Cute things ensued, the sorts of things that parents will want to tell you about and you’ll think “I guess you had to be there.” So let me tell you.
Cute thing one: as you all likely recall, her first word was “burp,” and it remains one of her favourites. Her definition is a little elastic; if she hears a burp, she’ll say “buhhhhp.” She’ll say the same thing, though, if she hears a fart. Well, it had been a long time since lunch and Mama Dog wasn’t back yet with the food, so as I rocked Baby Dog my stomach commenced to rumbling. The first growls were fairly quiet and passed unnoticed. Then a 6.1 ripped loose from my stomach, roaring like the MGM lion and rattling the bars of the crib. Baby Dog looked up at me wide-eyed and said, “Buhhhhp!”
Cute thing two: One of the regular items in my Bedtime for Baby Dog repertoire is The Torch Singer, which is maybe not age-appropriate, being yet another song about drinking oneself into a stupor to deaden the pain of lost love, but it’s slow and quiet and I know all the words. I’ve been singing it to her since she was weeks old, and I think it helps cue her to the fact she’s supposed to be sleeping. Anyway, one line in the song goes “..and I ordered my money around…” Tonight, she did what she’s been doing lately when I get to that part: she said, “Mum!” See, she doesn’t know what “money” is yet, but she definitely knows who “Mummy” is, and is always keen to chime in when she thinks that subject has been raised.
Cute thing three: Not a thing the baby did. As we were rocking away, I could hear the dog on the other side of the door, clacking about in the living, fretting about the whereabouts of his peeps. I was worried that his clacking would upset the sleep rhythm mojo I was developing – Baby Dog often gets alert when she hears the dog walking about because she finds him to be of great interest. He was soon quiet, though, and she didn’t stir. A moment later, though, I heard a childish sing-song voice on the other side of the door saying “Chee-eese!” Instead of being freaked out that somebody had broken into our living room, I had to stifle a laugh lest I wake Baby Dog. The voice belonged to Baby Dog’s new toy camera, given to her for her Dol by Grandpa B. The buttons on the front make the camera say “Smile!” or “Chee eese!” Doggy Dog must have lain down upon it and the buttons have a hair trigger. Baby Dog was easing softly to sleep, but now I was suddenly tense; all I could think of was that Doggy Dog was alone in the living room with a floor full of toys. I dreaded coming out and finding what had become of the mallard.
I felt bad leaving Mama Dog feeling porely and having to take care of the baby besides, but I felt kind of painted into a corner. As it turned out, it was just as well I went to work. Mama Dog was feeling better by late morning and I never did hear back from the backup dude. Moreover, I had left off in the middle of a complicated assignment the night before. Even if I had been able to get somebody to pick it up for me, it would have been most flummoxing for them to figure out how to deal with the patchwork of almost-dones I had left behind.
When I got home, Baby Dog was finishing off a big meal and already starting to be cranky. She had skipped her afternoon nap, and Mama Dog reckoned she’d go right to sleep after a bath. While Mama Dog went out to grab us some takeout, I rocked the girl to sleep. Cute things ensued, the sorts of things that parents will want to tell you about and you’ll think “I guess you had to be there.” So let me tell you.
Cute thing one: as you all likely recall, her first word was “burp,” and it remains one of her favourites. Her definition is a little elastic; if she hears a burp, she’ll say “buhhhhp.” She’ll say the same thing, though, if she hears a fart. Well, it had been a long time since lunch and Mama Dog wasn’t back yet with the food, so as I rocked Baby Dog my stomach commenced to rumbling. The first growls were fairly quiet and passed unnoticed. Then a 6.1 ripped loose from my stomach, roaring like the MGM lion and rattling the bars of the crib. Baby Dog looked up at me wide-eyed and said, “Buhhhhp!”
Cute thing two: One of the regular items in my Bedtime for Baby Dog repertoire is The Torch Singer, which is maybe not age-appropriate, being yet another song about drinking oneself into a stupor to deaden the pain of lost love, but it’s slow and quiet and I know all the words. I’ve been singing it to her since she was weeks old, and I think it helps cue her to the fact she’s supposed to be sleeping. Anyway, one line in the song goes “..and I ordered my money around…” Tonight, she did what she’s been doing lately when I get to that part: she said, “Mum!” See, she doesn’t know what “money” is yet, but she definitely knows who “Mummy” is, and is always keen to chime in when she thinks that subject has been raised.
Cute thing three: Not a thing the baby did. As we were rocking away, I could hear the dog on the other side of the door, clacking about in the living, fretting about the whereabouts of his peeps. I was worried that his clacking would upset the sleep rhythm mojo I was developing – Baby Dog often gets alert when she hears the dog walking about because she finds him to be of great interest. He was soon quiet, though, and she didn’t stir. A moment later, though, I heard a childish sing-song voice on the other side of the door saying “Chee-eese!” Instead of being freaked out that somebody had broken into our living room, I had to stifle a laugh lest I wake Baby Dog. The voice belonged to Baby Dog’s new toy camera, given to her for her Dol by Grandpa B. The buttons on the front make the camera say “Smile!” or “Chee eese!” Doggy Dog must have lain down upon it and the buttons have a hair trigger. Baby Dog was easing softly to sleep, but now I was suddenly tense; all I could think of was that Doggy Dog was alone in the living room with a floor full of toys. I dreaded coming out and finding what had become of the mallard.
posted by PapaDogDuvalier | 10:12 PM
1 Comments:
Poor Doggy Dog! He missed you guys! Tee hee!
I love the tummy rumbling story - very cute!
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