Sunny Daze: Lo cotidiana magica

Every day the Boss wakes up mewling, demanding MILK. NOW DAMMIT.

After a gluttonous intake of whatever white liquid appears, her head falls askance and we tiptoe her back to the bassinet, smiting one another with enraged glances if one of us stubs a toe audibly on the bedpost. No sympathy for a broken toe here, nay- if that broken digit wakes the baby, you’ll be the one limping around swaying her for the next hour, my friend.

Between 6am and 9am, the Boss issues her Incantations from a somnambulant state; they are a mix of a trumpeting elephant, billy goat and the dinosaurs that attack Newman in the Jeep scene of Jurassic Park 1. The Incantations are accompanied by vigorous arm swinging and occasionally some head bobbing before falling back into the deep REM cycle her dad and I haven’t obtained in weeks. If there are messages within the Incantatjons, we know them not, but they’re issued with great passion.

Then she and I settle in for Morning Snuggles, the highlight of my day. She burns like a furnace on my chest and I lie there frantic at the thought of waking her and frantic at the thought she’ll overheat in her fleece sleep sack so as she smiles contentedly and with closed eyes, dreaming of a river of milk, my heart rate steadily increases, my throat grows tight and I wonder if I’ll pass out from anxiety.

Her cries and breathing and strange utterances are our morning soundtrack, the morning’s tintinnabulation and, like church bells ringing across the sky, she calls us to mind, and to hark, and to listen and to be present. Church bells give you pause, strike the sky, pierce the ho hum of daily life, and she is just like that, this tiny boss. She is the ringing of bells, clear, piercing the air, calling you to mind, mind life.

And to bring the milk.