Terza get a lot of ear infections. One might use the word "chronic." One might even suggest ear tubes, but that's a whole other blog post . This chronic, ear-tube-worthy ear infections make her quite cranky, quite frequently. Now I'm not averse to putting on some Elmo for the kid when necessary. She's baby number three, and as such certain AAP recommendation such as "no TV under the age. of two" just don't apply, but if I let her watch Elmo every time she was cranky or sick, she's be glued to the iPad pretty much half of her existence and even I think that's a bit much So i try other measures before resorting to Elmo. One such measure is music. After all, my close personal friend William Shakespeare once told me that music tames the wild beast, and when she's got an ear ache there is no doubt my daughter is both wild and a beast, though I certainly don't hold it against her, poor thing. Primo right now is going through an Elvis phase, and one day while DJing on my computer one evening, he put on "Hound Dog."
The baby, who was on day two of earache, went LOCO. It was as if she was a teenage girl seeing Elvis live in concert. Alongside her brother, who was attempting some pretty fancy, pretty frenetic dance moves, she began to get DOWN. Mainly her dance consisted of the warm-up Jennifer Beals does in Flashdance in her leg warmers - the super fast running-in-place on her tiptoes -- except with a chicken wing flap added in that really made the move really sing. Making the moment inedible and delicious, she was laughing like a madwoman the whole time.
It was one of those moments you live for as a parent, a transporting moment where there are no problems, no troubles, no stressors. Just joy, mind-erasing, expansive, effervescent joy. It was the kind of moment you wish very much to replicate. Be careful what you wish for.
After her Elvis Flashdance Moment Terza often asked to listen to "Hound Dog" and how could we deny her? The problem is, the more she listens to it, the more she wants to. She just can't get enough. She wants it on repeat play, two, three, four, twelve times. There is no amount which is too much. The first time she hears it, she gets up and dances her patented Flashdance Chicken Joy Dance and it is delightful and life-affirming. The second time, too tired to maintain such ebullience, she sits down and listens, not unhappily, but not altogether pleased either. And after that, she just goes about her cranky business, throwing kicking tantrums on the floor, whining to get more cookies, grabbing her sister's drawings and crinkling them into balls, except that in the background is Elvis singing "Hound Dog." Whenever the song ends, the takes a break from screaming COOKIES! or ELMO! or "PICKAMEUP!" to screaming "HOUN DOG! HOUN DOG," and we put it on because our brains are so addled we don't know what else to do.
Which is how I have come to hate Elvis Presley. Sorry, Mr. Pelvis, but talk to the president of your baby fan club, because it's her fault.
Saturday morning, David let me sleep in until the crack of 7:30 at which point I was awoken by the sound of a drum roll followed by "You ain't nothing but a …"
"Nooooooo," I moaned.
Five minutes later, when I emerged from the bedroom to find Terza whining about waffles while listening to "Hound Dog" for the fifth consecutive time, I was forced to ask David, "What is this song ABOUT anyway? Who is the hound dog in this scenario? And is it supposed to be a bad thing to be a hound dog? In what sense? I JUST DON"T FUCKING UNDERSTAND WHAT HE KEEPS TRYING TO TELL ME."
This is how people go insane. If I end up in Bellevue, have the docs go on my history on Spotify and tally up how many times I was forced to listen to "Hound Dog" and they will understand why I am sitting in a corner muttering incessantly to myself: "you ain't never caught a rabbit.".
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