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The smoke alarm did not go off again and we didn’t burn to death. So good news on the front.
I spent most of the day replying to people on Twitter who were suggesting it was the battery and telling them it was not the battery.
I hope it wasn’t the battery.
Ernie continued to be hot and unhappy and touching his ear in distress so I took him to the doctors this afternoon, though of course by the time our appointment came up he was laughing and showing off and looking in no way poorly.
And there was nothing wrong with him beyond what I had diagnosed myself. Halfway through the appointment I realised that I’ve been suffering from some sort of tinnitus on and off for a couple of months and thought about asking the doctor if she’d have a quick look in my ears too. But I am too British and reserved and play by the rules and thought that it might be some sort of contravention to use part of my son’s appointment, so stayed quietly and so will have to put up with my ears occasionally crackling and popping like someone has imprisoned the Rice Krispie elves behind my ear drums. I hate Knisper, Knasper and Knusper. I presume it’s the German version of the characters. Once we’ve Brexitted they will have to go home. So don’t need no doctor.
It just struck me that that old advert jingle used to go “Rice Krispies, the happy way to snap, crackle and pop,” which suggests there was an unhappy way to snap, crackle and pop that this was a preferable alternative to. I suppose eating Rice Krispies is better than being set on fire to be fair.
Amongst Ernie’s toys today I found a little wind up musical player that plays Brahm’s lullaby. It used to hang above the cot when Phoebe was little, but now all but the actually musical bit has disappeared and even that has been squirrelled away. I’d totally forgotten about it, as I have with most things from the last three and a half years of parenthood, but I got a real Proustian rush when I played the tinny music. It took me back to all those bedtimes when Phoebe was tiny and I’d sung “Little Phoebe, Little Phoebs, it is time to go to sleep now” along with the tune, often with desperation as she failed to do so. It’s only two or three years ago, but it felt like another time and I found myself welling up at the music and the memory. Or maybe just because I was recalling the sleepless nights of 2015 (as well as the sleepless one I’d just had in 2018) and the tears were mere frustration.
I was surprised by this little emotional jolt. Christ knows what I will be like when these little pricks have grown up and left home.
Aside from probably already dead obviously.
