Mastering the double pause and the revival of "Alby is okay"

Now Trouble Monkey is up and moving not an hour goes by where he hasn’t bashed himself.   

On two occasions last week when collecting Alby from nursery I had to complete an accident form following a red bump on his forehead (Tuesday) and a bruise on his cheek (Wednesday).  On neither occasion did the nursery staff know where the marks came from, not because of any negligence on their part but because Alby hadn’t made a peep.  Little Trouble Monkey is a tough cookie, even being bashed by Percy rarely brings on any reaction other than giggles. 

Some of this tough skin I feel may be down to having had to make the “double pause” second nature early on in Alby’s active life.  They say that when your child hurts themselves they pause to see how you will react and then feed off your emotions.  With Alby, we do the double pause - he bangs himself and pauses to see how I react, I just stand there frozen as if in a game of ‘Stuck in the Mud’ waiting to see how he reacts.  Eventually, with nothing coming from me and nothing coming from him, we both unfreeze and go about our day. 

When he really has hurt himself I find myself resurrecting a little ditty I sang to him whenever he cried as a newborn.  It went:

“I’m okay and you’re okay.

I’m okay and you’re okay.

I’m okay and you’re okay.

We’re okay Alby.

We’re okay Alby.” 

No musical masterpiece but with my brain flustered, my hormones going crazy and my exhaustion levels at an all time high, if it wasn’t repetitive I wasn’t about to remember the words.  The danger of the simple chant is that it can easily turn from gentle lullaby to a manic jig as your voice and mood merge into a state of heightened panic.  Many a time crying baby Alby would be bounced almost viciously as my strained voice robotically repeated my supposedly calm song.

Today, more often than not no song is needed but when Alby is tired and/or hungry life becomes a drawn out version of 'Musical Statues' as we alternate between the double pause and the swoop, hug and song as we make our way to the mirror / toy box / kitchen tap where a proper distraction from crying waits for us.  Who knew sticking a child's hand under running water could stymie tears so effectively?