The Retro Basset

Haphazard musings from a Minnesotan optimist.

[retrobasset]

5 Reasons Why the Parkland Shooting Will Make Gun Reform Happen

You might think I’m unqualified to write this. I’m not a school shooting survivor, nor do I know anyone who is. I am not an expert on every last detail of the events that recently unfolded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. I’m just a Minnesota mom of a kindergartner. A kindergartner who practices active shooter drills in school, and who knows her plan of escape in case of the unthinkable.

In the wake of this latest mass school shooting, I’ve read and heard arguments from many that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting that left 26 people dead, including 20 first graders, ‘should have been’ the impetus for gun reform. Of course it should have. The 1999 Columbine High School shooting should have.

This argument is frequently followed by a lament: If gun reform didn’t happen then, it won’t now.

But that is where I believe they are wrong. Here’s why.

1. Raw video. The roughly 3,000 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD), along with their teachers and school staff, experienced the same horror as previous school shooting survivors. But this time much of the world could, too. Seeing the raw video captured on cell phones, we could hear the perpetual, unrelenting gunshots, the hyperventilating, and the screams. We could see the running, hiding, and texting goodbye to loved ones. We could feel their fear in the depths of our souls because we didn’t have to imagine it. Instead, we were afforded an immersive look at the actual horror that unfolded.

2. Television news stations providing a platform for survivors. There is a newer trend happening in television news coverage of this event. In addition to interviewing survivors, reporters are handing over their microphones to allow those survivors to speak their minds, sometimes for several minutes, giving them a direct line to Congress and the President. Watch Lori Alhadeff, mother of Alyssa Alhadeff, who was killed, begging President Trump to take action on this issue and you will feel the rightful depths of her outrage. Watch MSD student David Hogg’s unwavering message to legislators just one day after the shooting, and you will see the intense resolve of a generation on the cusp of adulthood.

3. The grit of Generation Z. The students at MSD were born just before or in the wake of the September 11 attacks. They have already lived through a recession. They speak with conviction and clarity from personal experience. They feel, justifiably, that their lives hang in the balance, along with the legacies of the classmates, friends, and siblings they’ve lost. They challenge legislators directly and repeatedly on their past decisions, and on their future intentions to prevent future school shootings. Most importantly, they will not back down.

In part, this is because they have little to lose. They have not, in general, amassed a fortune to protect. They do not need to worry about being re-elected. They look right into the cameras, and into the eyes of the legislators they speak to. People are people, and they are not afraid.

4. Social media mobilizing. A cultural shift is already happening, and teenagers are leading it from their parents’ living rooms. If you think the flower children of the 1960s were cultural revolutionaries, imagine what they could have done with Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. MSD student Emma González now has more than 1.1 million Twitter followers (@Emma4Change), nearly twice as many as the National Rifle Association (@NRA). The Never Againcampaign for gun reform has more than 147,000 Facebook page likes. It was created on February 15. MSD student Cameron Kansky told The New Yorker he thought of the name while wearing his Ghostbuster pajamas.

Organizers expect upwards of 500,000 people to attend the March for Our Lives on March 24. It has gained financial support from celebrities George and Amal Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg, and others, and is being organized by the Women’s March. In Minnesota, more than 4,300 people have already RSVPed.

5. About 4 million new 18-year-olds. Nearly 4 million Americans turn 18 before Election Day this year, making them eligible to vote.

For those who care about this issue but fear that society will soon tire of the conversation, take heart. Change is coming. The kids are alright.

[retrobasset]

Sixteen Years Ago: 9/11

Sixteen years ago today, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and a third crashed into the Pentagon. I was 16 years old, which means for me and every other 32-year-old of the world, it was half a lifetime ago. It also means that the students now sitting in the chemistry classroom where my friends and I watched the second plane crash on live television were just being born. I wonder what they know, and how they feel, about this event that shaped our lives.

That was the morning we all grew up. It was not a gradual change; it was instant. Between first and second block, our lives were turned upside down. Everything we’d learned about the impenetrable nature of our country was blown to bits inside the nation’s biggest building, in the nation’s biggest city. The horrifying live news feed I’d originally thought was a Hollywood movie preview was real life.

Walking to our second class, the hallways were filled with shaken, serious, sometimes tear-streaked faces, hugs, and whispers. They were also filled with unity and resolve unlike anything I’d ever seen. It was tangible. It was powerful. We were “the future” then, and responding to this was a part of our inheritance and responsibility. In the days that followed, several classmates signed up for the military. Many more did other things that are important when you’re 16: finally ask out their crush, make up with their boyfriend or girlfriend, do their homework with a renewed sense of purpose, tearfully apologize to a social rival for the way they’d behaved—yesterday’s drama was so trivial compared to the magnitude of what we had witnessed.

I’m not a big crier. My first boss once told me as a compliment that I was the only employee he’d ever had who’d never cried in front of him. But recalling the morning of the attacks is one thing that can instantly make me tear up. If I really think about it, tears will stream down my face. The towers burning. The heroic firefighters and paramedics and police officers. The people jumping to their deaths to escape the smoke and flames, in orderly lines, falling and falling.

I will never forget.

[retrobasset]

The Sofa

Today, a sofa arrived at my house.

It has a curved back, high arm rests, and a fabric that is completely unreasonable for a house with a four-year-old, a baby, and two shedding dogs prone to furniture-lounging marathons. It’s white with flowers and butterflies and stuffed with down feathers, with embroidery around each line in the pattern. An absolute lady in a sea of baby rattles, play mats, and a toy kitchen that has never quite found its way to the playroom. And I adore it.

The sofa had belonged to my grandmother before her passing. My grandparents had been antiques dealers in Illinois for many years before making their way down to Florida’s golf courses. While I remember them best among palm trees, there are memories, too, of magical Christmas mornings with our extended family at their home on the rocky shore of Lake Michigan. Of my grandfather, Papa we called him, chasing my older cousins around the house in an ocean of red and green wrapping paper, wearing red pants with a bold red silk stripe down the side. Of learning how to needlepoint in a house that featured so many of my grandmother’s needlepointings, from purses and belts to wall hangings and detailed rugs. And of the time our family basset hound, Chester, made the trip and spent most of his vacation taking a dry sauna underneath a draped side table which also housed a heat vent. In all of these memories and many more, the sofa was close by.

After my grandmother, Nana, died, an odd thing happened. Behind the sofa had been a mirror that was nearly the height of the ceiling, propped solidly up against the wall. A few days after Nana passed away, my mother had returned to her apartment to find the mirror had, with no regard for the laws of physics, toppled over the back of the sofa and lay face-down and cracked, its top touching the carpet. We had decided it was Nana coming back one more time to check on her belongings, many of which were antiques she had liked too much to sell as part of their business. Though I can’t explain occurrences like these, I can’t dismiss them, either.

The sofa made its way here today after many months of sitting unsold in a vintage store, keeping company with an assortment of Staffordshire dogs and antique occasional tables. Knowing it was coming this afternoon, I felt an urge to clean house. I cleared off surfaces and arranged toys as neatly as possible. Though I appreciate things most for their utility, today I was excited that something extraordinary was coming to fill our 1990s suburban home. It was as if Nana were arriving any minute, often a conversation piece herself with her lively, entertaining, and frequently running commentary. When the moving guys – my dad, uncle, and understanding husband – carried the sofa into the sunny living room, I marveled at the improbability of its journey from Illinois to Florida to Minnesota and, finally, to my house. My 4-year-old daughter and I vacuumed dust from under the cushion, and agreed we would have to get the upholstery cleaned soon – a few coffee stains accompany the flowers and butterflies near the middle of the cushion, and a pen mark is visible on the left arm rest. But after we replaced the cushion, we sat down. I moved my younger daughter up from her play mat onto the cushion, too, and the three of us lay there, sprawled comfortably out in a way that Nana probably would have found too casual. And I took a breath. I thought of her. I looked at my smiling daughters. And I gave thanks for having this bit of family history, and for the promise of happy family memories that are yet to come.

[retrobasset]

Busch Terrace Memories

There are some moments of my childhood that I relive almost every day. I’m not sure if this is typical among others but for some reason, they cycle around my brain on repeat, most of them moments of comfort and the fantastic mysteries of childhood that fade into clarity upon growing up. Until I was 7, we lived in a 1922 house in Minneapolis. It had 3 bedrooms upstairs and a detached garage, and the basement was large and unfinished. Older kids were always breaking the basketball backboard off the garage by hanging on it during late-night pick-up games that would stealthily take place in our alley when all the grownups were sleeping. My parents replaced it three times in one summer.

In the dining room are memories of sitting at the big wooden table across from Mom and Dad, absolutely refusing to eat a few lima beans. It felt like hours, a standoff. I’m not sure what the final outcome was, but now as a parent I admire my parents’ vegetable-eating resolve. For the record, I ate my broccoli last night. And my daughter ate her pea pods without a complaint. I will never serve her lima beans. My brother and I would sometimes run like crazies, stark naked and a little chilly, around that big table and then through the house before heading upstairs for warm baths. I had a list of body parts that I had written in cursive and taped to the inside of the sink cabinet, so I could open it up and wash each body part without forgetting any. I am still a list person.

Along one wall of the dining room, there were windows that we once looked out of during dinner to see the lady next door completely naked in her house. The windows were surrounded by white built-in cabinets that my next-door neighbor Catherine and I were always opening to see if we could find “secret passageways” in the house, because it was incredibly aged and thus probably riddled with trap doors and other secrets. One of the passageways was in my closet upstairs, a tiny door that opened into a small space in the wall and seemed only befitting of a child or other small creature. We knew there had to be more, it was just a matter of discovering them.

Upstairs, my parents’ bedroom was the only place with air conditioning, so on the hottest summer nights, my brother and I would bring in our sleeping bags to sleep on the wood floor in their room. There is a certain smell that I remember about walking from the hot, sticky hallway into their cool, dry bedroom. Like cool rain and a favorite pillow, it was comfortable and refreshing. I would usually breathe it in deep, sighing in relief and thankfulness for that loud window unit.

There are so many of these moments in time that are rattling around in my brain, and I’ll be posting them on my blog occasionally, just to put them out there in the universe so that maybe someday my kids or grandkids might find them interesting.

Do you have haphazard childhood memories that often make their way to the front of your brain? I’d love to hear your stories.

[retrobasset]

There comes a time every now and then when I just feel compelled to write something, anything at all, simply because it's been a while and I need to feel connected to my thoughts and the universe and writing is how I do that. It usually comes on the brink of spring, just before the first storm of the season. We're supposed to get thunderstorms tomorrow. (I think my great-grandmother Archer used to say that she could feel storms coming in her bones. I hope I gain that predictive ability one day, too.) They've been a freeing event for me since I was a child, and beyond reason, really. Something about the raw and ragged, untamed, unpredictable electricity, I've always felt, can be a catalyst for change, for turning over a new leaf or just for reminding myself that I, too, hold power within. For years it was enough to interest me in weather patterns, barometric pressure, and lightning strike maps. I thought about being a meteorologist until I learned how much math was involved. Weather woman dreams aside, it feels good to feel strong and capable. The more I experience in life, the more I realize what a gift it is to have a body that can run and jump and hike and bend (mostly) the way I want it to. I felt that powerful feeling hiking in Colorado with my oldest friend last week. We were 10,000 feet above sea level, walking on slushy snow trails in our tennis shoes to a frozen lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. I was 14 weeks pregnant, too, and taking care to gulp as much air as I could. We went slowly, passing dozens of people: families, solitary hikers, hippies, yuppies, and more. But our favorites were the serene, old folks, gray and slim. Seventy or eighty years old, they were usually smiling, as if they knew the secret to life. Maybe they do. We resolved to be like them when we got old. Equal parts old and awesome. When we got to the lake, we hiked around the edge and sat down on a log to eat a snack and take in the view. The snow-capped mountain in our sights dipped smoothly between one point and the other, forming a soft U that looked as if God had scooped it out for use in a gigantic ice cream cone. The strong sun reflecting off the stark white lake made the 50-degree day feel 20 degrees warmer. It wasn't the highest lake on the trail, but it was almost certainly just as picturesque. I felt a sense of ease and accomplishment sitting there with my friend. We'd earned the privilege of that log and that view. It was a beautiful moment I’ll not soon forget.

[retrobasset]

Color For My Colorblind Guy

On Tuesday, my husband saw pinks, purples, and oranges for the first time in his 29 years. He’s red-green colorblind, and ever since our high school dating days (yep, we met in 10th grade band) it’s been a goal of mine to help him see colors better. Something of a bucket list item for me, though he never talked about it.

Image credit color-blindness.com

The thing is, he never knew what he was missing, but I did, and it pained me to some extent. The experience of seeing a purpley-pink sunset, or a rainbow in its entirety. The beautiful variety in a garden. All of the emotions that a full range of color can evoke in us. He’s a scientist, a chemical engineer, and color just doesn’t come into play as often as Bill Nye the Science Guy might have you believe. When he sees an object, he focuses on its texture and shape, whereas most of us tend to determine its color first. And if he needs to know about a color, he just asks. (Was that a purple firework? Are you sure I’m not wearing a pink shirt?)

But on Tuesday, standing in our backyard, he donned the pair of EnChroma sunglasses that our daughter and I had gifted him and after several seconds, he knelt down to inspect one of our purple peony bushes. I think he looked at a single bloom for nearly a minute. He proceeded to walk across the deck to study our honeysuckle vine, covered in fiery orange blooms. He took the sunglasses off, then slid them back on and smiled. So this is what orange looks like. He’d always thought that vine bloomed a pale yellow.

I asked him to come around to the front yard to see what he could see. When he spotted our hanging basket of periwinkle and bright pink flowers, the one we’d bought at Costco last weekend, he took it off its hook and set it on the ground, just to have a good stare. He had never seen the difference between the two colors. They were absurdly bright, absurdly saturated, and so very beautiful. He said they looked like they were glowing.

Later in the evening, he recalled various times when color blindness had played into his life. When all the other second graders had drawn blue or orange fish, and he’d drawn a purple one. Or when a teacher had instructed him to refer to colors on a pie chart that all looked the same. He said when he wore the glasses, he could feel pressure behind his eyes. Probably, he figured, because they were sending messages that his brain had never received before. We wondered together if that’s what it feels like when you’re born, that pressure behind the eyes. The brain receiving new signals for the first time. We wondered if colorblind people are more likely to go into careers that are objective and less artistic. He teared up. “Are you sad?” I asked. “No,” he replied. “I’m happy because I get to experience this now.” And we thought about all of the things we’d be doing this summer.

Apparently, these sunglasses have 100 different lens coatings on them to correct the spectrum overlap that occurs in many colorblind people. They’re made on the same machines that coat satellites. They are pricey, but no more than a pair of designer shades. And in return, my husband received a window into our colorful world, which is far more vibrant than he ever knew. I can’t wait to explore more of it together.

[amommynous]

It’s been a while and I have absolutely no excuses for you. I just have a husband and a house and two dogs and a new job that I ADORE (after 5-plus months on the unemployment docket). Oh. And a two-year-old.

In the whirlwind of our existence, Madeleine’s 2nd birthday arrived much too quickly....

[retrobasset]

Children's Book

"Coco loves Chester's saxophone howls, and Chester loves Coco's mischievous prowls."

Tonight, I wrote an entire children's book. It's about my basset hounds, of course.

[retrobasset]

What (Not) to Say to Basset Hounds

Make haste = Most ridiculous thing ever to say to a pair of basset hounds. 

Make yourselves comfortable, on the other hand? Yes. Yes they shall.

[retrobasset]

Night Skies

Every time I look up at the stars on a clear night, I try to really look, as if there will be some message up there to guide me. I love the smell of evening after the sun has warmed the earth, like fond memories of family vacations on humid Florida beaches. Tonight smelled like that, and as I let the family bassets outside, I ventured out to drink it in. Let it fill my lungs. Let it fuel my being. There was energy in the air. 

Maybe it's just spring fever and nostalgia.

Maybe it's the fatigue of repetition, or the excitement of the unknown.

Maybe it's that I truly desire some guidance these days.

What do you really want to do with your life? 

Do I have to answer? Do I have to know? I want to know so badly. How can I find out? How can I be sure?

I once read an article where one of the world's oldest living people shared his two secrets to longevity. He said to avoid making your health a regular conversation topic, and to always embrace change.

That second one has never come naturally to me. In fact, I have actively resisted change much of my life. I order the same thing off the menu nearly every time, and when they take it off the menu, I ask if they can still make it. I haunt the same places, listen to the same songs, watch the same TV reruns, the same movies. They're safe. They're familiar. I already know what's going to happen. And foolishly, that gives me some sort of sense of wisdom.

But change is inevitable, and true wisdom comes not from the repetition of experiences but from the breadth of them. 

Watching the stars, however, seems to be an exception to the rule. Every time I look up I see different bits and pieces of a vast space. It's the same exercise, but it always yields a slightly different outcome.

Some nights the stars seem so close and so very hot, like I could reach out and singe my fingertips. Other nights, they seem cold and ancient, wise worlds distant to me and to each other. But they are always, always relevant.

"You are tiny, your concerns are tiny, you are precisely where you're supposed to be," they seem to say. "Breathe and let calm in. Clarity will come."

I have wondered recently if this is not the stars talking to me, but God. This is a fantastic and terrifying possibility. I really don't know what to make of it, much less what to do about it. I've been a sometimes churchgoer all my life but so much of it seems decidedly impossible, which is why I've kept it at arm's length. Why would God be talking to me when there are arguably billions of people who are more in need of his attention? 

Reason tells me it's just the feeling I get when I stop long enough to take a few deep breaths. Emotion tells me it might be more. Reason responds that emotion is almost always irrational. Then why does emotion linger? Why do the stars continually assure me of my place in life? Why do I keep looking to them for guidance?

"Breathe and let calm in. Clarity will come."

Maybe I have too much time on my hands. Maybe time is what brings out purpose. Maybe one day soon, the message will be clear.

[retrobasset]

Unemployed

It's the most depressing word in the history of employment. And as of today, it accurately describes me. So let me just take a few sentences to feel sorry for myself so I can move on.

After five years at a great job, I got laid off due to financial constraints. My entrepreneurial employer could no longer afford a full-time employee. From the very first moment I heard the news two months ago, I was strangely optimistic. This could be a great opportunity, I thought. So I scoured the net, stalked Facebook friends, doubled my LinkedIn contacts, reconnected with past colleagues, networked with family, friends and people in the biz, and applied to 13 jobs that I really, truly thought I could love.

Of those, two companies wanted interviews. One wanted 6 interviews and an hour-long assessment test. And today that one, the one I wanted the MOST, the one at which I was already secretly celebrating my first day on the job, called me and said they didn't want me. "It was down to two people," they said. It was a "very, very difficult decision. We're so sorry. Best of luck with all your future endeavors." 

Holy crap. Is it just me or is there ABSOLUTELY NO OXYGEN in the air right now? 

Of course it's just me. I know, I know. Don't worry, you'll find a job. Well it's their loss. Something will turn up. My uncle's company is hiring!

Here's what makes this more difficult than it seems. I want my job to be something that I LOVE. I want it to be something that combines my writing and editing skills with my passion for social media. Most of all, it's got to be a company that's doing something awesome. Helping people? Awesome. Helping animals? Fantastic. Making the city/state/country/world a better place? Heck yes, sign me up. I guess I'm an idealist at heart. It's what motivates me.

But I'm going to share a secret with you. I'm scared. And I think it's holding me back. It's like those "writers" who never write a word because they're afraid of what people will think, how they will interpret it, and how they will also inevitably misinterpret it. You can't be judged for something you didn't do. But put your life's work out there and it might get blown to bits. That fear is enough to make most people hide beneath mediocrity's security blanket. And I have to admit, it's a comfortable place to be. It's cozy and familiar. It's predictable. But in the end, it is a false sense of comfort. Because if you're anything like me, you're always going to be nagging yourself about what you "should" be doing, what you "could" be doing, what you would do if failure didn't exist.

My younger brother called me last week. He's in grad school studying vocal performance (he's an accomplished tenor soloist) and he gives voice lessons to help pay for it. He told me about a student of his who was having trouble hitting the high notes. The student's voice was always faltering right before those notes, because he was scared he wouldn't hit them, so he held back, the fear depleting his oxygen levels. To cure the problem, my brother told him to "lean into" those notes and give them all the oxygen he could muster.

Seems like this advice can be applied to many opportunities in life. Leaning in is the only way you'll give yourself a shot at success. It's like golf: if you don't swing hard enough, then the ball has no chance of going in the hole. I don't want to hold back; I want to ace it. I think the secret is leaning into the uncertainty, with no regard for fear or failure. Easy to say, nearly impossible to do. But not entirely impossible. Here's to taking one big inhale, one full backswing, and seeing where they take me.

[retrobasset]

Why my basset hounds are awesome.

They sink into the couch.

They give new meaning to the words, "Make yourselves comfortable."

They are living heated blankets. And foot warmers.

They love polar fleece blankets just as much as I do.

They listen to me. 

They want to make sure I'm never alone. Even when I'm peeing.

They find joy in everyday pleasures. Like walks, treats and belly scratches.

They have peaceful eyes.

Their tails wag like helicopters when I come home.

They just get me.

[retrobasset]

Today, our family journeyed over to take a look at the Sculpture Garden. It was a warm, windy day, and Madeleine loved the hundreds of wind chimes they'd suspended in the trees.

[retrobasset]

Advice from the Bassets: Catching Zzzzs

The other day, while watching my two basset hounds curled up for a lazy, late afternoon slumber, I realized something. I haven’t gotten eight straight hours of sleep since before Maddie was born. And after six months, I think it’s starting to wear on me.

Before becoming a parent, sleep was always high on my priority list. I never pulled an all-nighter in college. While my friends would meet up at 10 p.m. for a night on the town, I’d often already be in my pajamas. I just knew that my body required 8 solid hours of sleep, and that if I got 7 or less, I’d be in for a rough day.

I don’t know about you, but one night of being short on sleep can send my emotions on a roller coaster ride. I’m deliriously happy or sad, content or frustrated, and any small change will send me off in a completely different direction. I am impressed that my body has been able to handle the lack of sleep as well as it has. After all, it’s no small feat to wake up, feed the baby, and fall back to sleep multiple times in the middle of the night. But now, at six months, I’m no longer deliriously happy or sad, content or frustrated. I’m just delirious.

With this in mind, I may have to take a cue from the bassets. They value sleep highly. If nothing particularly exciting is going on, they’re saving up energy to make the most of the next big adventure. I really enjoy my evenings talking and watching late night TV with my husband after Maddie has drifted off to dreamland. But that first stretch of sleep is her longest. And more than 4 straight hours of sleep is starting to sound like a mini-vacation. Will I feel cool turning in at 7 p.m.? Absolutely not. I will feel like the oldest 20-something on the planet. But will I feel better (and maybe even younger) the next day? I think I will. And that’s something worth giving up late night TV for. At least sometimes.

Pssst. This was originally posted on my parenting blog. Please follow me at http;//amommynous.tumblr.com too!

[amommynous]

In the past few days, Madeleine has started to show signs of some serious teething. We’d been thinking she was about due for a chomper or two. The problem is, there’s a reason it’s called “cutting teeth.” It hurts!!

I read up on the process and apparently the teeth don’t actually cut through...

[retrobasset]

Note: This Post Is From My Mommy Blog, Amommynous.tumblr.com. To Read The Rest, Please Follow Me There, Too!

[retrobasset]

Hold the Walking and Talking...

…I’m kind of liking things just the way they are. Don’t get me wrong! I’ll be absolutely over the moon when Madeleine says her first word and takes her first steps. But right now life is so beautiful.

I don’t have to flood my house with baby gates. Our house doesn’t look like the toy store exploded. I set Madeleine down and when I blink she’s still in the same spot. She tells us when she’s tired, hot, cold, hungry or bored, which makes a pretty short checklist for solving her unhappy moments. She and I both love when I mimic her babbles — and when said mimicking induces a full-on laugh attack. And she is so quiet when we are out and about that people are always telling me what a good baby she is. She’s the perfect size for the Baby Björn, and I love holding her close to me. And I just don’t want it to stop.

I know we’re going to have scraped knees and bruised elbows from running around the house and the yard with the dogs. I know we’re going to have meltdowns in the cereal aisle. I know we’re going to have complaints about bedtime. And that’s just the beginning. 

But whenever it happens, I’m ready. Because for all of the challenges every step of the way, I hear it just keeps getting better. I guess I’ll just have to find out for myself. But before the next phase hits us, I want to have a few more babble-fests and walks in the Björn. Because I know I’ll wake up one day and she’ll be headed off to kindergarten.

Note: This Post Is From My Mommy Blog, Amommynous.tumblr.com. Please Follow Me There, Too!

[retrobasset]

Familiar Music

When I was pregnant last summer, my husband came home home one day with the strangest looking pair of headphones. "They're not for us," he explained. "They're for the baby." And sure enough, the headphones had an adhesive that allowed them to stick right on my belly, supposedly making it an unparalleled surround-sound stereo experience for our little girl.

I had heard about the possible benefits of playing music for babies in utero, and we had lots of fun making baby playlists. We played classical and jazz music, with a few Christmas carols thrown in for good measure. She was due in October, right before the holiday season, so we figured we'd better get her acquainted with them. During this time, I wondered whether she'd have any recollection of these songs after being born. But once she arrived, our busy schedule compelled that thought to wander to the back of my mind and settle in for a long winter's nap. It was only last week that it resurfaced.

So over the weekend, I thought I'd try a little experiment. On Saturday morning, after a good hour's worth of play time, sleepy Madeleine was ready for her mid-morning nap. She was a bit fussy--that time where she doesn't want to play but she fights sleep because she never wants to miss anything, either--so I carried her over to the computer and turned on the very first playlist we made for her.

Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 was first on the playlist. From the moment that tune hit her ears, she stopped fussing and was silent. Her eyes widened. She was listening. And I think she was remembering. By the time the second song had finished, she was happily asleep in my arms. Amazed but not throughly convinced, I tried the same experiment when helping her fall asleep for her afternoon nap--with the same results. It was truly incredible!

To have something so soothing on hand for her is fantastic, and to watch her become so attentive to the sound, then so relaxed, is fascinating. I'll certainly be digging those headphones out of the cupboard with baby number two.