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I like to hoist Ronnie Lou over my head in a gentle arc while saying "WHEEEEEEEE," because she grins like a loon and eats her fist with glee. But for the last two weeks, due to bruised ribs I sustained in the course of crashing my bicycle (I lead a very full life), I now play Space Baby with a noise more like wheggghh, which of course just doesn't pack as much panache.
Fortunately, it doesn't matter that much to Ronnie right now. I could read the owner's manual to our microwave oven to her for the bedtime story and she'd still be enthralled for exactly nine minutes, at which time she starts pulling hairs out of my arm. She's just like her mother that way.
At five months, my daughter needs constant stimulus and interaction from Tobi and me, but none of that interaction has to make any real sense. I can say "Bean pie ding-dong!" in a squeaky voice while wiggling my ears for a full half hour to this kid, and she squeals nonstop with the kind of transcendental joy you can only get through complete and utter non-comprehension. It is funny to her, and she wants to see it again. Again. Again. You get the picture.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it myself. The ability to discard meaning and just gibber like a squirrel isn't just a little bit cathartic. I always come away from these little playtimes feeling lighter and happier, having bathed in the glow of a laughing baby who thinks random words punctuated with fart noises are just as much a scream as I do.
I'd be willing to bet that there are some real health benefits to this. I've been thinking about working some sort of random-sounding mantra into my nightly exercise ("Magic hot dog scooter bee!"), but I get enough wierd stares just riding my bike, without the enhancement of crazy-person talk. But can you imagine the stress we could all unload if we were able to walk up to each other and (insert sound of fingers-on-the-lips bweebabweebabweeba) for, oh, say, ninety seconds, uninterrupted? You could probably almost hear the masses of fists, teeth and anuses (anii?) unclenching.
The irony, of course, is not lost on me. Here, the single most important endeavor and presumably the most significant source of worry and stress in my life has turned out to be a refuge from the blind, churning idiocy of the modern world.
Until she learns how to speak.
3:47 AM
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