Torture

Last night, Natalie wanted me to snuggle with her for a bit, after Jon put her to bed, so I did. We allow her to listen to CDs or classical music while she is falling asleep, and we just realized her CD player has a repeat function. We usually put her story CDs on repeat so they lull her to sleep.

Last night, she wanted to listen to a CD that her Great-Aunt Lois and Great-Uncle Don sent her a couple of years ago - it's a personalized CD of songs about "Natalie". I put the CD in, hit repeat, and left.

Half an hour later, I heard her scrambling about in her room, then thought I heard her door open. I went up to investigate, and found her crying in bed, thoroughly traumatized. I asked what was wrong, and she said "That song won't stop. It's making me crazy". Oops. I forgot that the CD player has two repeat functions - repeat one track and repeat all. I forgot to repeat all, so the poor kid listened to the same song for half an hour before finally cracking.

I had an immediate flashback to something I learned in Psychology in HS. If I remember correctly, in the early part of the 20th century, experiments were conducted on some unfortunate souls. Apparently, they were put in all white rooms, no window, no pictures, decor, nothing. And "Happy Birthday" was piped in continuously. And it did indeed drive people insane. I guess it's a good thing her room is painted bright blue, with lots of stuff on the walls!