Primo is prone to blood noses, and they occur in the middle of the night as often as not. This has sometimes been very frightening for him, but I'm often impressed with his calmness. Since his father suffered similarly as a child, he is usually the front line for this kind of incident.
And so last night up they went to the bathroom to go through the ritual involving oddly twisted tissues, discussion of clots, monitoring blood going down the throat (which really causes P to lose it), and other details with which they are both very familiar. I listened sleepily from the bedroom in case things took a turned for the worse and I was required. Being only half-awake and slightly too far from the bathroom to hear the words, I monitored the timbre of the conversation.
Blow me down; in the middle of the night, leaning over the bathroom basin waiting for the blood to stop, Primo was alert, talkative, and most striking of all, his intonations were the most expressive that I've ever heard. For years I've listened to his rather monotonous mode of speaking (another source of non-finite grief that occurs in relation to the lack of facial and vocal expression -- perhaps I'll elaborate another time), and learnt recently -- and not surprisingly -- that intonation is located in a different part of the brain from other aspects of language. But why, when I, perhaps most people, would expect a child to sound weary, and everything that that entails, did my son's speech sound so unusually fluid and musical?
Whatever the reason, it was delightful to hear. And now I know it's there. So exciting for him, and for me, I'm sure it sets off a little synaptic fireworks display in my brain, it feels so enlivening to hear.
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