William's music box

When I was a freshman at Rhodes, I took an Old Testament class as part of our mandatory religion class requirement. Two of the guys in my class, Ravi and Bryan, were amused by all the Hebrew that we were learning, and somehow they came up with this word--either a Hebrew or a mock Hebrew word--"merrh!" and decided it meant "good value."

Here's how you might use it.

William's music box from his Pack n Play finally bit the dust about ten days ago. He had hurled it to the ground one too many times, and no amount of tinkering or fresh new batteries could coax life back into it. I found a replacement on the Graco Website, marked down to $9.99 from its regular full price of $19.99. Merrh! That is definitely an excellent value.

It's an especially good value, considering that David and I have often remarked that the price of the Pack n Play was worth it for the music box alone. The music box is just about the only thing that we've had since William was brand new that we were still consistently using. All the tiny 0-3 month clothes have long since been put away, and we've had to switch to bigger carseats and a different stroller, but the music box has remained. It has accompanied us on every single trip we've made since William was born. About the only place it hasn't been with us was in that hotel in Dallas in June--and that's only because it was stashed away in our checked luggage.

So the new music box arrived today--technically it's called a musical soother, I think--and I can't wait to put it on the crib railing tonight. I think William has missed it, if for no other reason than because he likes to fiddle with the little nightlight on it and then throw it to the floor.

The music has been such a part of our lives for so many months now that even just a snippet of one of the songs can instantly transport me back to those first few weeks when William was here, when he slept in the Pack N Play in our room. We turned on the music to quiet him down after changing him or putting him down to sleep. The songs are pretty standard, and yes, we could get tired of them after awhile, but I actually really liked one of them. David swore he remembered it from a music class at Princeton, and he managed to figure it out and buy a Mozart CD with the real sonata on it. It will forever remind me of my new baby son, of those breathless early nights when I could sink into a deep Navy SEAL sleep the instant my head hit my pillow and pop awake as William was inhaling to take his first breath upon starting to cry.

For the record, I emailed Graco to ask for the list of songs, and a very nice lady named Lynn emailed me the song titles so that we didn't tax our own knowledge of classical music too much more. Here they are: 1. Mozart - Eine Kliene Nacthmusik; 2. Brahms - Lullaby; 3. Chopin - Nocturne Opus 9 #2; 4. Mozart - Sonata in A major; 5. Claude DeBussy - Clair De Lune.

William doesn't really need the music to go to sleep now. He's been doing just fine with just his crib aquarium for the last week or so. But I think he likes the music box anyway. It's always been there for him. It's his, and he knows that.

And yay, now we have our music box back. Merrh, at any price.