Filters (I Don't Hear No Crying)

The other night I had been holding my daughter Sophie for about half an hour while she was trying to get to sleep. I was watching TV, I can't remember what it was, but there was nothing great on. Then, suddenly, I realised she was crying again, and not just crying, screaming. Somehow I had filtered it out completely.

My first thought was, what a crying shame to waste my moment of Zen-like focus watching TV!

My second thought was that I have moments like this every day. My journey in from Streatham officially takes about 50 minutes door to door. Some days it crawls by and the train takes an age to get from station to station. Other days I'm at work before I realise it, and haven't even got annoyed by anyone taking up my personal space on the train.

My daughter (and all babies) have the same thing. If they have decided to sleep then it's impossible to wake them. I can pick Sophie up, change her nappy and put her down in another room with no problem. This makes them great when we want to take photos as it's the onnly time they stay still - being pushed in a hollowed out log (like in the picture above) takes equal place with being tucked up in a cot. When she has decided that she doesn't want to sleep though, there is a problem. The slightest noise can wake her (heck, even no noise can wake her).

I think life would be so much easier if I could filter our attention like this. It's like the old self help saying that while you can't control what happens to you (the baby in your arms is crying), you can control how you react to it (ignore it - oops, I think "ignore" might be the wrong word here!).

If babies could concentrate on sleeping when they're meant to be sleeping, it would make parents' l Of course this is never going to happen in the real world, so put the word out I'm working to invent an attention filter, or even better, I'm looking to buy one. And I promise I won't waste it watching TV!