The following information is classified as TOP SECRET ... TOP SECRET... TOP SECRET...Before Milo was born, I was worried that I might be going deaf. All too often I'd have to ask people to repeat themselves or get Rob to tell me what Jon Stewart had just said, so I could find out why he was laughing so hard. It made me feel a bit ridiculous at times -- especially when I'd find myself smiling and nodding at someone without hearing a word they said, but being way too embarrassed to ask them to repeat what they'd just said for a fifth time... or a sixth.
( Ah, how the sins of our youth come back to haunt us. My poor hearing is almost certainly due to all those hours I spent as a teenager aimlessly driving around on isolated country roads with AC/DC blaring on the stereo in my 1980 Ford Pinto. Yeah, that's right. I was hugely into AC/DC back then-- in fact, I was an AC/DC snob, preferring to listen to Bon Scott belt out classics such as "Dirty Deeds" or "Highway to Hell" than have to endure ol' whatisname crudely holler all that "Who Made Who"-era shite.
Oh, and my Pinto was cherry red with a red Starsky & Hutch stripe blazoned across its sides, and it had a nasty tendency to overheat on the highway. Yep. I was the height of cool back then.)
These days, however, I've become convinced that someone must have implanted a bionic hearing device in my ear when I was in the throes of labour, because I can hear EVERY SINGLE SOUND MILO MAKES, no matter how soft and insignificant. My ears have become permanently attuned to his every utterance, it would seem.
Rob and I can be in our bedroom listening to a loud "car races and explosions" kind of movie and I'll still be able to hear Milo in the next room over, sighing as he slowly comes awake.
"Shush!" I'll hiss at Rob, gesturing for him to turn down the volume. He'll comply with a dubious frown, clearly about to tell me I'm imagining things, when all of a sudden Milo will make another noise, louder this time, and Rob will raise his eyebrows in surprise.
"Well, whaddya know," he'll say. "I guess he is awake."
Of course he is. I knew he was. His tiny little gurgles and squeaks are as loud as a foghorn to me.
No matter how deeply I'm sleeping, the moment Milo makes a sound, I'm jolted wide awake. I can hear him squawking in his crib when I'm in the shower. Once I even heard him fussing when Rob and I were in the office jamming to Pink Floyd's "Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict " -- and as anybody who's ever listened to that song can attest, being able to hear one tiny creature squawking in the midst of that kind of auditory chaos is surely a superhuman feat.
I feel like a walking, talking Who song -- except I can hear for miles and miles and miles and miles and miles. I almost believe that I could even hear Milo's heart beat, if only I listened hard enough.
I'm beginning to fear that I'm not going to get a decent night's sleep until Milo's gone to college.
Hmm. So this is what motherhood feels like.
6 comments:
Yep something about the act of child birth heightens all senses in a mom! It does get better beleive me LOL I was like that when mine where little. Now they are teens and well I can sleep through most anything LOL
I do kind of miss hearing them breath at night.
I can hear Duncan even when wearing freakin' earplugs. It's insane. In nearly seven months, my husband has NEVER woken first. I thought it might wear off after the tiny newborn stage, but no, still hearing him as loud as ever.
My mother informs me you can still hear your kids even when they've gone to college.
Oh, and i officially hate your hockey team.
I wear earplugs to bed every night but still wake up to the first sigh broadcast over the baby monitor. This is just part of mommyhood I guess. I have no idea how people who co-sleep actually sleep at all at night.
It's great how you just know things about your child. Great ole mother's instincts.
Just wait till you just just know when they are doing something they should not be doing and go running to stop them from doing it!
Did you know that we also become human lie detectors?
Yeah, I agree with the moms-with-super-senses thing. My 2 girls both slept in their own rooms from the beginning, but I could always hear the slightest peep out of either one of them. Unfortunatly, it's led to a little bit of insomnia, even when the darlings are asleep -- I lay awake just listening for them to make a noise.
What's really scary is when they're TOO quiet. Of course that means they are up to something!
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