I have memories as a child of being in my bedroom after my bedtime and hearing sounds of my parents and their friends out in the living room. As a child, I didn't have to have the room dark to sleep. I didn't have to have lots of lights on either though. But I liked seeing the hall light through the cracked door of my room. It didn't have to be silent either, my parents could make lots of noise. In fact, I liked hearing activity in the house after bedtime.
I have memories of my parents having parties and there being lots of sound in the house while I lay there in bed. Sometimes they'd have friends out on the deck. They'd be drinking beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and they'd be having a fun time on the deck. I couldn't see the deck, but the flood lights would be on in the back and I knew there was a party going on.
The next morning after one of these parties, I went out to see the results. There were beer cans all in the back yard. That was strange. My parents are the non-litering, clean sort. My mother told me one of their friends made a joke after having several beers that everyone should just throw their cans over the deck when they were done. And so they did, because the back yard was quite the mess. I was young and eager to help, so I cleaned up all the cans that morning.
I remember one New Years Eve in particular. I was too young to know I was missing out on a big calendar event and celebration opportunity by going to bed early. The next morning, I went into the den and there were party hats and noise makers and streamers all over the room. It was like finding a ready-made kid's party and I got to have fun with it all because my parents were still asleep. I'm betting they weren't thrilled at me blowing the horns and clack-clacking the clackers while they were trying to sleep at six o'clock, but hey, I didn't have a hangover, I went to bed early.
Back to the cozy sounds of a happy house though. I always found it comforting hearing my parents talk and the television playing some show I was too old for. I liked it the most when there was a party and people were having fun. I got to go to sleep knowing people were happy and enjoying themselves all around me. It wasn't a distraction, it was a comfort.
The other night, my sister-in-law was telling a story. And let me tell you, this story was a good one. One of those stories that everyone is saying, "No way!" and, "She didn't?!" and we're all laughing and being loud and just having a great time in the kitchen. Where are my children? They're asleep just upstairs, with their door open, and all those happy sounds are filtering into their room. And they're sleeping soundly.
I didn't want to handicap my children by putting them to sleep in a dark, quiet environment. We made sure from the start to have noise all around them and to have them sleep with light shining into their room. One of the things I like to say is, "Don't you cater to that baby." Because if you do, you may be handicapping them in the future by constraining their environment. Hopefully as they get older and become adults, the flexibility they have in sleeping will be an asset.
The Big Boy Update: Hives. School called today. He ate hummus, something he's had before, and he got hives. His skin calmed down with some Benadryl, but we don't know what the inciting food was (if it even was a food.) I called the doctor and asked about having allergy tests run. Here's the situation. When a baby is born, they have no allergies. They only develop allergies after being exposed to something. So until they have had a chance to develop allergies, running an allergy test will yield incomplete, or inaccurate results. That's why they recommend not running allergy tests until a child is two. So for now, we take notes if he has a reaction and we bide our time and we hope he grows out of some of these food sensitivities as his immune system gets more mature.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: She realizes she can walk now. Okay, not walk, take steps. And she seems somewhat interested. The person who is most interested in her walking however, is mommy. I keep standing her up and dangling something exciting three steps away. She sometimes goes for it but mostly she's going to do it in her own time.
Fitness Update: Okay, health update. I'm trying to have less sweet things all around. Now those of you who read this and know what I ate yesterday can most definitely call me on this one. CUPCAKES! My sister-in-law and I got cupcakes of massive deliciousness at Whole Foods yesterday. They were scrumptious. But I avoided many things yesterday that I wanted to eat that were sweet and replaced them with a savory item like a cracker instead of a cookie.
Someone Once Said: To believe you can live free of your cultural matrix is one of the easiest fallacies and has some of the worst consequences. You are part of your group weather you like it or not and you are bound by its customs.
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