Chapter 2: Sing your Own Tunes
A mom has to sing - sing through newborn crying spells, through fever and colds, through boo-boos. A mom has to sing a child from sleepiness into a peaceful night’s rest.
Unfortunately, I can’t remember the lyrics to songs for the life of me. This really wasn’t a problem in my pre-parent days. Now I’m expected to remember 50 songs, in detail, with hand movements, at any given moment.
My musically gifted sister can’t believe that I even get the Itsy Bitsy Spider song confused. “It’s climbs up the spout a-gain, with a British accent,” she tells me. She had to sing the song to me several times before I finally got the ending.
Tunes I can handle. I can hum them correctly to my heart’s content. When I was pregnant, tunes from childhood came back to me in force. So did panic when I realized all I knew were the first couple of words, or a phrase here or there. “La, la, la . . . a place to call our own . . . doo, doo, doo.” I had a vague recollection that the people on the bus did more than just go up and down.
Would I ever be able to sing my child to sleep? How would we handle car trip sing-a-longs?
I tried looking up lyrics on the Internet, but pregnancy was not the best time to be doing this. After graduate school, my memorization skills took a nose dive. It seemed that my body was too busy growing hands and feet. Kiddie songs were low on the evolutionary list.
It didn’t improve after my daughter arrived. I would stumble through lyrics - part singing, part humming. I kept repeating the same couple of very short songs again and again.
Finally, out of desperation and boredom, I made up my own songs. This liberating move makes for ever evolving lyrics and unending entertainment while pacing the floor with a crying infant or pushing a child for what feels like forever on the swing set. You can change the words without guilt. You can sing the same thing over and over and over, just varying one word or phrase until you find the perfect one. I started using the strategy on classic kiddie songs as well.
Besides going up and down, people on our bus did all kinds of things no one else on the proper bus ever did. Babies nursed instead of cried. Daddies passed gas and mommies tickled. We had animals that roared, hopped, and neighed on our bus.
Making up my own songs also made for something I never expected - my daughter started making up hers as well, tunes and all. The results keep me and my husband laughing. Her favorite is “Don’t be sad. Don’t be mad. Don’t be happy,” at which point she looks off into the distance, not quite sure which part doesn’t make sense.
Fortunately, my daughter did not inherit my gene for lyrics. She remembers all of them. She recently sang the whole Itsy Bitsy Spider during a 4 a.m. potty trip, gestures and all. And nailed the ending with the correct “a-gain.”
I called my sister the next morning to tell her the news. “Thank god,” she said. “At least one person in your family will someday sing to their baby the right way.” I laughed. What she doesn’t realize, but my daughter and I know, is that any way is the right way to sing to a baby.
Top Tip #2
Music can change your entire mood! If you feel like you’re going crazy inside the house, put some music on. Dance around with your baby, dance around with yourself! When the baby is older, have an instrument box for music time. Even little babies can shake a shaker or maraca or bang with sticks on the floor. Set the timer for 10 minutes and have music time.