Voice Recognition

I really didn't want to turn this into some sort of parent-y blog, because there are lots out there better at it and far more gooey than what I am. Unfortunately, at the moment, it's all I know . . .

So apologies, both for the lack of posts and the repetition of this theme, and I will understand if you decline to read on because you're missing intellectual discussions on mobility scooters, floating leaves, boobs and toilets.

If you're still here?

Well, ta.

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Do you remember being a kid, and being almost asleep but not quite, but too tired to open your eyes? In that nice little, swirly zone just before you actually go under, when you're so pleasantly relaxed that scientists would actually be able to classify you as a liquid?

I loved that feeling. Still do in fact. These days, I'm usually able to get myself to sleep, eventually, although I do still find it hard to "switch off" as people who are very good at kipping tell me you're supposed to do. When I do that, I concentrate so hard on switching off it perks me right up.

Anyway, eventually, I usually manage to find the appropriately monotonous thought routine that bores me into submission, and off I go.

When you are tiny, you often need a spot of help, and that is often the sounds of your parents' voices, either reading to you or just general chit chat.

That's a bit of a dilemma for a parent, because you want to get them off to sleep, so you use your most soporific of voices, and read The Gruffalo in a quiet and surprisingly camp lilt

But what if it's not necessary?

What if you can just witter on about the days necessities and still get them off to sleep?

I remember, if sleeping in the car or somewhere, how nice it was hearing my parents' voices, not even quietly, chatting away about how fags had gone up to 50p a pack and it was health and safety gone mad, whatever health and safety were. You could happily drift off knowing they were nearby, and you didn't care what they were talking about, or even if you could hear the words, as long as they were in the near vicinity, just as long as they were there and you could safely have a kip.

Your mum could've had a voice like an eagle on helium, but you'd still be able to fall asleep listening to it.

Nowadays, I am the baritonic rumble that helps send my baby off to sleep. It's never when I'm trying to get her off, but only when I happen to be walking her around, or pushing her in the buggy and chatting quite normally, when suddenly I notice she's zonked out, snoring gently into a pool of dribble on my shoulder, or slumped forward with head at a disconcertingly trachea-warping angle.

Then, I change to a whisper and immediately, she wakes as if thinking I must be talking about her. Which is possibly the case.

It's not just voices either. Stick on the Hoover next to her head, and not a peep. Rustle a piece of paper in the next room and her eyes spring open like the guard in a jail just as your about to steal the keys off of his belt.

I wonder if this is an evolutionary trait, in that loud noises nearby are most likely simply everyday things going on, and present no danger, but the quiet rustle of a leaf or gentle snap of a twig could very well be a big hungry, toothy thing sneaking up on you.

There'll be a paper on it somewhere, by a scientist with an interest in babies getting eaten.

Whatever it is, it's nice when they drop off and, despite my theory that I could talk at normal volume with no ill effect, I still creep around her like a particularly nervous ninja, even though I could possibly just carry on stomping around singing Amarillo in a croaky falsetto.

But still, would you want to risk disturbing this:

Nuh-uh.