My Future(istic) Baby-Friendly house

will also have baby generated power. Put the child in a hamster wheel-like structure, put something he wants in front of him, and let him go. Then, enjoy the energy.

I've also decided that babies need to be protected from not just walls, but all sharp corners. (J has yet another bump on his head after smacking into the corner of a chair ; ) So, for my futur(istic) baby-friendly house I will commission a special kind of paint which can be brushed on the edges of walls, tables, chairs, or anything potentially baby unfriendly. Of course, it will be virtually undetectable in order not to spoil the decor. Said undetectable paint will be able to sense impact of a certain magnitude. (Of course, you'll be able to buy the paint in different strengths according to your baby's age and bruise-ability.) Upon said impact, said paint will momentarily change the structure of said sharp corner. A wicked table edge, when bumped, will become soft and giving for just a few seconds-then fade slowly back to it's original solid state.

It is fun to come up with crazy gadgets-especially when they are completely imaginary and I don't have to make them plausible. This whole baby friendly house idea has caused me many musings about mothers' desires to protect their children, and how at some point protection becomes overprotection, which can hinder the child's growth. My musings have been very deep, philosophical and insightful. However, I'm not feeling deep, philosophical or insightful right now. So rather than recording my musings here, I will add this. Very clever, eh?

Mondegreens

I find it interesting when I mishear song lyrics. It seems like once I interpret what the words must be, I can’t figure out what they really are-even when my interpretation makes no sense. Then for some reason I hear the words clearly and say “Oh! That’s what it really says!” I did that today with a John Mayer song.

Only recently I figured out that in the Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music it says “What a DUET for a girl and goatherd.” I loved Sound of Music as a child and watched the Julie Andrews version until I had every song memorized. For some reason, though, I never realized what that word was. I think that’s because she says deeyoo-et in a British accent instead of doo-et the way we Yankees would.

The funniest misheard lyric story I know is told by my dad. He is a semi-pro singer and songwriter. One day my sister, who was probably six or seven at the time, came up to him as he was practicing for a gig. “Daddy, what’s a dorfling?” She wanted to know. He had no idea what she meant and no idea why she was asking him at that particular moment. Later he realized that he’d just sung a song that had the phrase “the door flings open wide.” My adorable sister thought he was singing about the "dorflings of the wild."

Apparently, misheard lyrics like this are called mondegreens. There are a couple of collections of them on the web. The best known archive is at kissthisguy.com It was pretty informative as well as entertaining. The funniest thing to me, though, was that the banner ad on the site was for a hearing aid!

My Future House

Someday I will design a babyfriendly house. The corners of the walls, while appearing exactly like the rest of the solid surface, will be soft enough not to create bruises when one smacks into them. The cupboards will require fingerprint scan. For parents they will open immediately. For babies they will stay securely closed. The floor will rotate-something like those cloth roller towels that are (not often any more) found in public bathrooms. However, the part of the floor that is not being used will be swept and mopped, or vacuumed depending on the type of floor covering.