[Previous entry: "Mumbles or Mama?"] [Next entry: "But Just in Case, I'll Stock Up on Garlic"]
03/16/2008: "Who'd Even Take Her, If She's Gonna Be Like That?"
I read about an Italian lullaby the other day that cracked me up. The Italian goes:
Nanna O, Nanna O
Il mio bambino a chi lo do?
Lo daro al suo angliolino
Che lo tenga fino al matino
Roughly translated, it means:
Lullaby, lullaby
Who shall I give my baby to?
I'll give him to his little angel
Who'll keep him 'til morning.
The mother in this lullaby goes on to offer her offspring to a cherubio (little cherub), the befana (an ugly but kindly witchy sort of person), and my personal favorite, Gesu e Maria (Jesus and Mary, who, if truly available for babysitting gigs would, in fact, be the best choice don't you think?).
I suppose the idea is that the mother is putting the baby to sleep and while said child is snoozing, she wants someone (preferably someone supernatural) to watch over her sweet infant. But - and this may be my own circumstances talking here - I cannot shake the conviction that in fact the mother is shopping her kid around all, "Hey, who can I pawn this kid off on? Well, maybe Jesus'll take him off my hands!"
And I can't say I blame her sometimes.
When Dessa is throwing a fit, usually because we're doing something awful like warming a bottle so she can't have it right this second, oh my GOD the horror!, I often joke over her howls that yes, we probably are the worst parents in the world and next we're going to leave her out on the curb for the gypsies. And we all have a laugh and get on with our lives because, of course, there are no gypsies in Fremont, more's the pity.
One does wish for a roving band of gypsies when one's child, just for example, will not go to sleep even though one's child is so overexhausted that she has deep circles under her eyes. This scenario has been playing out more and more often in our house this past week. Dess is cutting her top teeth and it's been harder for her than the bottom two were. Simultaneously, she has decreed that morning naps are for sissies and there will be no more of them for her, thankyouverymuch. The combination is brutal.
Today, for example, she was rubbing her eyes and throwing herself around like a rag doll at nine-thirty in the morning. That would have been a good time for a nap, right? Thought so. But knowing my child as I do, I knew it was too early and that, in fact, she wouldn't actually sleep if I tried right then. So I gave her a bath, toweled her off gently, rubbed in that good-for-nothing sleepytime lavender scented lotion, put on clean clothes, rocked her and settled her in her crib.
The screaming started right about the time I started rocking her. She knows, you see. So I rocked, and she struggled, and I rocked and she yelled, and I rocked and she settled down for about 45 seconds and then oh! The lamp! Can I reach it? And oh! The chair! Can I touch the back of it? And oh! Mommy's necklace! Can I eat it? And oh! Mommy's zipper! Can I...
No, you may not. And into the crib she went.
Thus commenced 35 minutes of yowling, singing, babbling, screaming and rolling around. When I finally gave up and went in to get her, she had the audacity to grin at me. Little shit.
I fed her some lunch, hosed her down again (lunch was some broccoli - which we know how much she loves, right? - and some banana, which she adores so much that it gets freaking everywhere) and then, after a few minutes digestive time, tried sleep again.
This time it was all out war. She screamed, she struggled, she cried. And then I remembered - Tylenol. And Orajel. The kid is teething and when she has nothing else to distract her, the teeth hurt. So I dosed her up, plunked her in the crib and...
She screamed. And cried. And threw a fit. And then, by some miracle... she seems to have fallen asleep. Either that or the gypsies really showed up and took her away because it's been quiet in there for 10 solid minutes. I'm not about to check and risk waking her up. All I can say is if it's the gypsies? I owe them, big time.
[Edited to add: Yeah, well, the gypsies only kept her for half an hour. Apparently she was too much for them, too.]
Notes from a Yarn Hacker
