Safe

Touche (with an accent, please), oh you who commented that the quitting seemed to have taken. Have not had access to a computer for the last few days, so I have decided that I will make up for the last two missed posts by NOT taking off the weekend. Sound fair? Good thing this isn't an actual dialogue.

I am writing from my aunt-in-law's office in Illinois. We are here for the weekend, visiting, and the girls were both wound up and exhausted after nearly a day of travel. Annika, generally the easiest baby in the world to put to sleep, was not quite buying it in a wholly unfamilar room, new crib, no sister, familiar music or Flat Dog (my fault), and a few minutes after I'd put her to sleep she was still whimpering, and so I went back in. 

She was standing in the crib, one of the portable, fold-up versions, hands on the side, shaking her head and saying, "No, no, no, Mama. Where? Where?" I scooped her up and lay down on the couch in the room with her, and she immediately snuggled into me with a contented, audible sigh. I'm generally pretty good about not comparing my girls, so I will allow myself this one flagrant comparison: at this same age, Lily was not very much of a snuggler. In fact, unless she had a high fever or was being read to, she rarely lay still in my arms; Annika--like Sadie, it must be said--is of the maximum skin-to-skin school of snuggling, and as a person not known for overt displays of affection, I must say, I love it. 

I had found an old radio in the room we are staying in, and on my first try at sleep had set it to what I thought was an innocuous, generic, FM lite station with little DJ commentary. As  lay on the couch with Annika in my arms, this at first seemed to be the case. And then, the tempo picked up, and I realized that it was 7:30 Central Time and that I was lying on a couch in Champagne, Illinois, with my 18-month-old baby in my arms, listening to Men Without Hats bust out "Safety Dance." To continue the theme of time travel, I was suddenly half there, half in my eighth grade gymnasium at a school dance. I could practically see the robot moves, the worst offenders, who shall remain nameless; a few of them might even be reading this now. 

What I am steering toward here, although I know it doesn't seem remotely like it, is that the music was far from relaxing, evocative for me, at least, of an intensely unrelaxing time and place, but that lying there with Annika melting into me was the most relaxed, content, I've felt in months. These moments of stillness with her and her alone are so rare; I am glad I have held onto the ability to cherish them, even when the world around me is all Men at Work-style chaos and discord. 

And then. As if her ability to transcend Safety Dance weren't enough, I felt a tiny hand on my cheek, along my jawline. A tiny voice say, "Amy. Mama. Amy." Just perfect. Exactly what I needed to hear.