There are times in my life where I do something so painfully obvious that I can’t help but feeling stupid afterwards. My one son is currently having separation anxiety issues from both his mother and myself. It alternates depending on location and who isn’t present. In the house he will call out for his mother and in the car for me.
So tonight when my wife left the bedroom to check on his sister just as he was starting to drift off to sleep he went into a bit of a fit. Singing calms him down but after doing Hush Little Baby and Bah Bah Black Sheep I was out of kids songs. This is when it hit me to look up lyrics to songs on my phone and sing to him.
He was most of the way asleep but it still took a bit to get him out to the point where he wouldn’t wake and start screaming for his mother again when I stopped singing. The songs I sung to him were Sweet Baby James by James Taylor, Mr. Bojangles by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and For Baby (For Bobby) by John Denver. Like I said just a few songs and then he was out cold and I was free to leave the room.
What is interesting to me is these are the songs my parents sung to me when I was a kid, and they aren’t the songs their parents sung to them. That makes me question a few things but then again not. It isn’t like songs from my youth like Smells Like Teen Spirit and Baby One More Time make great bedtime songs to sing to children.
The big thing is I don’t know why I hadn’t done this sooner. My father had song books when I was a child. At times it feels like modern technology has replaced the old in such a way that it makes us forget certain possibilities. I never even considered looking up lyrics before tonight. I might need to think of some more modern songs to sing to me children but then again there is nothing wrong with the tried and true catalog.
David Huzzard Writes 