The weirdest thing is the noises that startle the girls. If I DARE to cough anytime after 6pm I am banished from the house…I retreat to the mantuary…the garage where I can sit in the cold and look at my motorcycle and reminisce about the days of old when I actually rode the machine.
But the coughing thing is weird. As soon as I cough, not a booming cough, just a clear your throat kind of cuff-cuff, and the twins arms shoot straight out from their sides and their eyes pop wide open as if they have just witnessed an armed robbery with shots fired.
Or my Blackberry email alert thingy. I have it set to the Chi-Gong sound; a kind of Buddhist noise to remind me to stay in the moment. Same reaction. Arms straight out, eyes wide open. And then their mom hisses something sweet at me, something like, “You jerk, they were JUST GOING TO SLEEP”. Yeah, she hisses that in full on caps-lock.
It is just weird. Firecrackers pounding outside like we are under siege? Sleep right through that noise. “Dong” and eyes wide open. But then they realize it was me, they smile beatifically and it is all good.