Kristin's solo night
Hand and Feet; taken during the day.
Kristin didn't take any photos of
her solo night!I know, I'm a bad blogger: two days without a post! Our weekend was so full of activity that I just didn't get a break to post anything! Many apologies! So, back to it. The weekend started with Kristin's first night home alone on Friday. So, of course, I made her write the blog entry!
"There is a dance that appears out of nowhere, steps we don't know we know until using them to calm our baby. This dance is something we learned in our sleep, from our own hearts, from our parents, going back and through all of our ancestors ... The sway and hop and rhythm are peculiar to your own child, to his or her particular biology and stringed emotion, the harp of nerves."
—Louise Erdrich, The Blue Jay's Dance
Little did I know that the African dance class I took a number of years ago would have a practical application for parenting. Last Friday I spent my first evening alone with Fern while Graham went up to the Marine Mammal Center. Although it was one of the easiest evenings yet (since the days she began her witching hour mode), she did have a mild fussy period in which I discovered that a polyrhythmic approach to soothing her (in which I jiggled her gently in my arms while shushing in one rhythm and shuffled my feet to another rhythm) worked wonders! Seems that she takes after me in my love affair with all things African.
