Racket

"Man is a great blunderer going about in the woods, and there is no other except the bear makes so much noise." -Mary Austin

Becoming a momma has made me super-sensitive to sound.  I had no idea what kind of racket everyone and everything makes until my day revolved around Maeve's naps.  So this is a a message from myself and all the other mommies of babies out there: Shhhhhhh!

Yesterday, Maeve finally seemed tired in the afternoon, and my uncle picked just then to take the front door off its hinges and plane it.  I have found myself enraged at drivers of buses, unnecessarily big-mufflered cars, sputtering motorbikes, and cars with faulty brakes.  I hate it that all summer and fall, the landscaping crew at my apartment came by with leaf-blowers and weed-whackers every other day during naptime.

So a relative of mine insinuated yesterday that I was spoiling Maeve by always letting her fall asleep in peace and quiet, and told me her youngest could sleep through anything.  I tried in vain to point out that youngest siblings naturally develop a thicker skin about noise because they have to if they ever want to sleep.  Talk about making a virtue of necessity!

I know I'm a newbie mom and I'm making a lot of the typical mistakes.  But please, when I tell you she can't sleep through the TV being on or your phone conversation, just humor me and go somewhere else.  I can only do this the way I know how.

Despite the maddening crowd