Bonk

After weeks and weeks of asking for trouble, it finally found me in the form of rapidly descending baby. Look, I DO have a monitor, and I DO run to check her all the time - just this time she woke up silently, I didn't hear a peep... until.

It was around 11:00 - after her first nap. She must have been sitting up and reaching for the cat - all I heard was a "Whap!" sound. Or maybe it was more of a "Whump!" Hmmm... It was definitely the sound of a thanksgiving turkey dropped on the cement from a porch. Then, silence.

I bounded from the couch, hurtled the baby gate and tore upstairs like a cartoon catfight.

There she was, laying on her poor innocent tiny back, face frozen in Han Solo Cryptonite horror. Still no sound. I picked her up and braced myself, checking her limbs for plasticity and movement. A good 10 seconds passed before the most gigantic intake of oxygen to which I have ever borne witness rushed to her lungs. I imagine it to be similar to the sound a pelican must hear just before being sucked into a 747 engine.

Now, imagine if you will, sitting on top of a fire engine as its siren blares. With headphones on connected to a smoke detector amplified by Jimi Hendrix's distorted Marshall stack. during a thunderstorm. Ok. Thank you for imagining. It was louder than that.

Her wail was more like a proclamation than a cry. A rumpus vociferation, per se. She began on a mid octave C, rising to a crecendo at a high E or possibly G - It was hard to hear through my ruptured eardrums. This wail lasted until the last of her oxygen was expended, then was repeated four times.

After the fourth and final shriek, she abruptly stopped and pulled back from me, staring accusingly with tear streaked eyes. "I'm so sorry, baby!" I supplicated - to which she raised one finger, almost lazily, to point at my nose.

"ahh cha." she said, definitively. It was a demand.

"ok," I said. and gave her my best fake sneeze.

up until this point in my life I have never heard the triple inhaled sob breath interrupted by a giggle.

but then again, I've never been a dad before.