The Best Worst Sound

The very sweetest, funniest, happiest, sound that I have ever heard very frequently causes my heart to miss a few beats as I wait expectantly to see  if it will explode or if I am able to contain the joy and exhilaration that overcomes me at its sound.  Sometimes it comes suddenly, taking me by surprise, and other times I listen with a smile for a few minutes while working on some task, before it completely overwhelms me and I have to drop what I am doing.

This same sound can cause very sudden bursts of frustration and short flashes of anger.  This is only ever when someone is sleeping or the TV is on, and I am hanging on every word of a dialogue or waiting for the most important part of the newscast.  In these instances, that most beloved of all sounds is nothing but an obstacle, keeping me from the punchline of a joke, or the reading off of an important number.  

In the first instance, Aaron's babbling catches me off guard, over and over.  His perfect "Da da da da dee dee da da da deee doooo!!" shouted confidently for all to hear is the highlight of every hour.  His facial expressions and voice inflections change throughout his conversation, and he is obviously saying something.  Often he is talking on the cell phone (or the pedometer -- and at this very moment he has a Polly Pocket bed held up to his ear/mostly cheek and eye and is conversing animatedly with someone) and he paces around the room, just like his dad does when he's taking care of business on the phone.  The sound of this makes me drop what I'm doing and race to sweep him up in my arms and smother him with kisses and smell his neck and hair and hug, hug, hug him and never want to let him go.  It is one of my greatest joys as a mother. 

Still, as I said, there are times this boisterous monologue is just TOO LOUD, or is begun abruptly at exactly the moment we want silence.  In these cases he might also be swept up in our arms, but instead of kisses and sniffs and hugs, he gets carried into the next room, we call, "Evie!  David!  Please come play with Aaron!" and we get back to our show, happy to have such willing babysitters to free us for a minute from the constant babbling.  

I used to feel bad when I was frustrated about kid noise because I was trying to listen to something on the radio or TV.  I hear all those grandparents talking about how they long for the very sounds that used to annoy them as parents, and I don't want to be the parent that takes what she has now for granted.  Still, now I realize that that happens maybe once or twice a week. The grabbing him because my heart may burst from the overabundance of love his talking causes me to feel happens several times every day.

I'm a practical mom.  I can't make myself feel bad for snatching up my baby to get him out of the way of my occasional entertainment, when I know that most often he IS my entertainment, and I snatch him up to gobble up all the sweetness and love he is filled with a dozen times for every time I'm getting him out of my hair. Maybe I should, but I don't.  I just recognize his babbling as the very sweetest, happiest, smartest, funniest, very, very best worst sound.