Ambience

Part of being a mom is getting used to a whole new set of silly sounds. When our daughter was first born we gave her this elephant that played music when you pulled on its tail. Its songs weren't familiar tunes but they soon became familiar to us, and other parents who had the same little elephant knew the songs, too. Her cradle swing had some soothings songs - one in particular - that we would hum along to. These days our daughter has lots of talking toys. One is a "laptop" that has a little song about how fun it is. It also says, "I like music," sometimes over and over again. She has a little playset on the fridge that has a song about mismatching the head and tail of an animal that I just can't reprint because of copyright. But other moms who have the same toy know the song - I just ran into one tonight. And tonight at dinner we heard a tinny alarm go off, and I figured out it was her temporal lobe thermometer, which she somehow plays with and had set the timer on. The timer is there to remind you to give your sick baby medicine. There are cries in the night you just get used to, and there are the sweet sounds - sweetest in the world is her laugh. There is also her cry - quite often inexplicable to me.