Shared moments

I, Jason, write this at ten minutes to twelve. Why, you might wonder, are we still up at this hour when Alida's been asleep for hours, and Kali is not here to agitate for ever-later bedtimes?

The answer can be summed up in two words: "Movie Nights"

Yes, friends, Jason and Janelle have summoned some uncharacteristic media appetite and have watched, in five nights, five different movies:

Mumford
Lars and the Real Girl
Junebug
Amelie
Guantanamera

Rating them on a scale of one to five is too blunt an instrument, so suffice it to say that both of us got the most feel-good, old-fashioned movie buzz from Lars and the Real Girl. Beyond that, it depends what you like.

The fact that this baby of ours (photographed here - some of our recent favorites) made this rash of home cinema a possibility is something we treasure as a gift from her, albeit unawares. They tell you that each child is going to be totally unique and won't follow the patterns laid down by older siblings. With Alida, nowhere is this more true than in her fondness for beddy-bye. Let me tell the story of the start of this night's sleep.

Long about 8:15 (the usual time), it became clear that everyone would be happier if Alida were asleep. So after a clean diaper and some swaddling, it was "night-night time", one of her favorite times of day. However, in contrast to her usual pattern recently, she did not fall asleep nursing, but rather continued her kicking and general tired-baby thrashing while failing to settle into a nursing rhythm. Janelle decided to try a lullaby (the one I wrote for Alida). As Alida often will do during singing, she joined right in, making some of her own adorable vocalizations. This time, however, something made Janelle call me in to listen. It came as a bit of a shock to realize that her vocalizations were approximately in cadence with the phrasing of the song. That is to say that at the risk of making too much of it, I will venture that she seemed to be...well...singing along! I was dumbstruck, which is good because nothing I could have said would have improved upon what I had just witnessed.

And this on the same day as her first true laugh! At the supper table (while Janelle and I were enjoying without a seven-year-old's critique our meal of pickled eggs and beets, squash saute, and rolls with jelly or pesto), Janelle began an episode of one kind of tickling that Alida has been enjoying. To our parental delight, there emerged from Alida that longed-for sound--one of the few instinctive human vocalizations besides sneezing and sobbing--a clear and hearty giggle! She did it over and over until the game got old (for her...not us!). And we, the owners of a broken tape recorder, were left with no option but to preserve the moments in our memories. Which is where they really belong anyway. We can't wait to be reunited with our Kali-girl tomorrow (who has had a fabulous week in WV) and be able to share these moments with her again.