For months I've been meaning to write about our developing lullaby ritual. I keep not writing it because there are no pictures, but even without pictures words are powerful right?
When our children were babies, they were sung to a lot as part of the attempts at calming them to sleep. This trick was primarily coming from either by Brent and I or their grandparents with maybe and Aunt or Uncle thrown in for fun. As they aged, we sung to them less at bedtime even though we were singing with them during the day and Grandma B was singing with them any chance she got - morning, noon, or night. (Recovering elementary school music teacher and all around music lover in our midst).
Oddly, at some unclear moment, maybe six months ago now, lullabies returned to our evening ritual. Now, after bath, pjs, book time, teeth brushing, medicine and potty time has happened, this new moment comes. In this quiet bit of darkness before bed each child, carefully tucked in bed, gets to pick one song for their Daddy and I to sing to them. If one of us isn't here, the other still does this.
This is somewhat momentous because while I come from a family with a big time singing tradition, my husband is not so naturally in to singing. I love that he sings to them even when I'm not there. I am loving even more the sweet duets that are developing between us as we sing songs repeatedly. Neither of us is particularly good or fancy at harmonizing, but we have found ways to make our own special blended songs unique and lovely (I think).
For the first few months, they had their songs individually, each in their own rooms. This allowed us to tailor/customize some of the songs with their names, but did mean each child usually only had one song per day. In the last month, they have been rooming together, so now they get at least two songs and can join in singing each other's songs if they want.
Some rules did have to be established. We refuse to sing the same song twice in a row. This means "I C U"* by They Might Be Giants is only sung every other day not every day--- as surely B would choose it every single time. I finger spell this song and the ABC song always, just to keep them thinking about letters and my hands in minimal sign language practice. The other frequent requests are:
Twinkle Twinkle---full versions
Jingle Bells---full version
Tingalayo***
"Maggie" Had a Little Lamb
Go to sleep my Maggie/Brendan -- this is a customized version of the "Powder Blue" from Renee and Jeremy**
ABC Song
Skinna Marinky Dinky Dink
She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain***
Wheels on the Bus***
Jesus Loves Me
Brush Your Teeth***
These make up probably 80% of the songs that they normally request. There are occasionally others. Sometimes we sing the special song my Mom wrote for B, but I don't always know all the words so they have to help us out. Most of these songs are M's requests as B request "I C U"* or the full version of "Twinkle Twinkle" nearly every single time.
One of these days, maybe I will video it so you we'll have a recording of the songs for posterity. For now, I'm just loving the beauty of the moment.
-------------------------------------------------
* I C U is from the They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs album available Here. We, of course, also really like Here Comes Science
and Here Come The 123s.
** Powder Blue is from Renee and Jeremy's It's A Big World
album. We love every bit of this album and also the follow up C'mon
on album.
*** These all come from Nancy Cassidy's Kids Songs
collection. For a long while at around 18 months M insisted on us singing every single song in the book daily--luckily the CDs comes with a book containing all the lyrics!
In all honesty, most days now, we're listening to a Kids Songs channel on Pandora via our iPad/ iLuv
set up, but these CDs were the base of our collection.
-- note links are amazon affiliate links
When our children were babies, they were sung to a lot as part of the attempts at calming them to sleep. This trick was primarily coming from either by Brent and I or their grandparents with maybe and Aunt or Uncle thrown in for fun. As they aged, we sung to them less at bedtime even though we were singing with them during the day and Grandma B was singing with them any chance she got - morning, noon, or night. (Recovering elementary school music teacher and all around music lover in our midst).
Oddly, at some unclear moment, maybe six months ago now, lullabies returned to our evening ritual. Now, after bath, pjs, book time, teeth brushing, medicine and potty time has happened, this new moment comes. In this quiet bit of darkness before bed each child, carefully tucked in bed, gets to pick one song for their Daddy and I to sing to them. If one of us isn't here, the other still does this.
This is somewhat momentous because while I come from a family with a big time singing tradition, my husband is not so naturally in to singing. I love that he sings to them even when I'm not there. I am loving even more the sweet duets that are developing between us as we sing songs repeatedly. Neither of us is particularly good or fancy at harmonizing, but we have found ways to make our own special blended songs unique and lovely (I think).
For the first few months, they had their songs individually, each in their own rooms. This allowed us to tailor/customize some of the songs with their names, but did mean each child usually only had one song per day. In the last month, they have been rooming together, so now they get at least two songs and can join in singing each other's songs if they want.
Some rules did have to be established. We refuse to sing the same song twice in a row. This means "I C U"* by They Might Be Giants is only sung every other day not every day--- as surely B would choose it every single time. I finger spell this song and the ABC song always, just to keep them thinking about letters and my hands in minimal sign language practice. The other frequent requests are:
Twinkle Twinkle---full versions
Jingle Bells---full version
Tingalayo***
"Maggie" Had a Little Lamb
Go to sleep my Maggie/Brendan -- this is a customized version of the "Powder Blue" from Renee and Jeremy**
ABC Song
Skinna Marinky Dinky Dink
She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain***
Wheels on the Bus***
Jesus Loves Me
Brush Your Teeth***
These make up probably 80% of the songs that they normally request. There are occasionally others. Sometimes we sing the special song my Mom wrote for B, but I don't always know all the words so they have to help us out. Most of these songs are M's requests as B request "I C U"* or the full version of "Twinkle Twinkle" nearly every single time.
One of these days, maybe I will video it so you we'll have a recording of the songs for posterity. For now, I'm just loving the beauty of the moment.
-------------------------------------------------
* I C U is from the They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs album available Here. We, of course, also really like Here Comes Science
and Here Come The 123s.** Powder Blue is from Renee and Jeremy's It's A Big World
album. We love every bit of this album and also the follow up C'mon
on album.*** These all come from Nancy Cassidy's Kids Songs
collection. For a long while at around 18 months M insisted on us singing every single song in the book daily--luckily the CDs comes with a book containing all the lyrics!In all honesty, most days now, we're listening to a Kids Songs channel on Pandora via our iPad/ iLuv
set up, but these CDs were the base of our collection.-- note links are amazon affiliate links
1 comment:
I have fond memories of my mom singing to me and my sister each night. I remember Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star; Michael Row your Boat Ashore, and I Can Sing a Rainbow being some of the songs in the regular rotation. Just the other night, I randomly remembered another one she used to sing about a girl who found a rotten peanut, ate it and died!?! Maybe not the best one to sing to small children, but we seemed to like it:)
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