Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Captive Audience


Lately, I do some of my best work on our front porch swing.

Tonight, when I returned from Amerigo's with dinner for Jude and me, John Patrick was in a fussy mood. As we tried to eat (and as Jude played in an on-line poker tournament), he kept crying and wriggling around in his "bouncy seat." Finally, I picked him up and sat him in my lap. I tried the pacifier, but he kept spitting it out. I got the message when, at one point, he managed to spit it straight out of his mouth, like a missile, right into my chest. Jude and I laughed really hard when that happened.

I swaddled him in one of his blankets and took him outside, where we sat down on the front porch swing. As I sang to him and kind of rocked in the swing, he stared up at me and calmed down, as he usually does. After a few minutes, he fell asleep. Tonight, I featured "The Police," and my selections included bits and pieces from a variety of songs, including "Tea in the Sahara," "Synchronicity," "Every Breath You Take," "Walking on the Moon" and "King of Pain, among others."

Now, I like to think that I have a pretty good singing voice. What really strokes my ego, though, is when I sing to John Patrick as he's crying and he calms down, then goes to sleep. That's pretty cool, actually.

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