What do you get when two mommies get laryngitis?
Yep. This post.
Having no voice left at all after social yesterday and a long conversation this morning with my--what shall we call her? The woman who also can't sit whom I'm getting to know--Non-sitting Buddy about doctors and diagnoses, but especially medications (since she's been to the ER twice for the same reaction to different drugs!!!! Maybe Long-Lost Twin is more like it!), I haven't really spoken to the children since they got home.
I have no voice. Which, for those of you who know me, means it is unusually quiet over here (and sorta frustrating). Especially because it seems that if I'm not talking, the kids aren't talking as much. Dinner was very quiet.
And then I tried some sign language on them. Remember how they knew some sign language by about 10-months-old, signing for "more" and "done" before they could talk? At the height of our (okay, my) obsession with Alex and Leah of "Signing Times," they probably knew 50+ signs--for animals, colors, actions, places, people. I loved refreshing my own skills and sharing it with them. But it never stuck. And now they don't even recall Alex and Leah (Babysitter does though; she can still sing all the words to the theme song!) Though, somehow, the alphabet did stick and they know it! Anyway, tonight over dinner, I signed a bit with Mama, who can follow me most of the time (she watched "Signing Times" too!). And the kids were flabbergasted. How do I do that? What were we talking about? Maybe they'll be interested to learn some again. But because that didn't help tonight, we managed to get them to bed with a combo of pointing and ritual, having to give up our nightly read for "Phineas and Ferb" because neither one of us can handle Harry Potter.
And now Mama and I are chatting on Gmail with each other, sitting here in the same bed. Neither of us knows enough sign language to have an in-depth conversation and we're not ready to go to bed quite yet. In fact, it's odd not to have talked today--we usually chat at some point, sharing snippets of our day during her commute or between baths. Thank heavens for computers (and that we have two of them so we can each use one). It is, by the way, how we got started, you know, years ago chatting over the university intranet after work at the library that summer almost 18 years ago! So, I'm actually enjoying this little electronic trip down memory lane, an unplanned date night.
Silence is golden, you know.
Addendum: As I finished this, Mama initiated text-to-speech software (get this, Lambeth, she's using a British voice!) Things have certainly changed! And I don't miss that orange "pine" prompt at all. Her iPad is cooler than my notebook. She's charging the kids' iPad so I can be British too.
I lost my voice once about 25 or so years ago. I remember the phone ringing and I picked it up and attempted to say, "hello". Nothing came out and I can see myself taking the phone from my ear and holding it in front of my face, totally baffled at what I should do. It struck me funny then, and it still makes me laugh to think about it. No texting back then...or internet...or any other good stuff like that. Sigh. Simple times.
ReplyDeleteWayne and I took Wendy's kids out to eat this evening while their parents had a few hours to themselves to dine at home and watch a movie (undisturbed) for their anniversary. When their dad came to pick them up, they were watching Phineas & Ferb...just like your kids.