Every night, I lay down with Lillian and sing her lullabies. She won’t sleep without them – not that I mind doing it because I’m well aware that I will miss this time of her childhood when it inevitably closes.
I won’t miss the songs themselves, but I will miss the bonding ritual of her wanting me near her…..not that she allows me to touch her or cuddle with her in any way at bedtime, but she still needs me.
I once had to tell her I had a special Nightmare Stick that I use to beat the bad dreams away and sometimes when she thinks a scary dream is coming too close she’ll ask me to use it before she can drift off.
I’m like her personal singing sentinel, batting away the baddies until she finds her way to Dreamland.
She’s usually out before I even get to the second tune, but I have a playlist of about five songs that I default to if she’s feeling restless. Once as I crept out of the bedroom after one particularly long musical marathon,Mark- who has accused me of coddling the child, lorded over me that he only sings her one lullaby when puts her to bed.
Well, whoop-de-do.
I pointed out that he gets away with that because he’s not home at night often and she’s probably just grateful for his presence.
“Or maybe I just have the best song.” He taunted.
I considered for a moment the only songs I knew him to have the lyrics down to well enough to sing on demand and in a soothing manner. “It’s The Humpty Dance, isn’t it.”
“No.” He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes a smidge as though he were trying to interpret both me and his life choices in the same moment. “You lunatic. It’s Rock -a -Bye Baby.”
“Whoa-I hope you aren’t implying that The Humpty Dance isn’t a classic.” I deflected. “I just would never have guessed you’d go so traditional. And Rock-a Bye is a little dark for you.”
“It really is! Those lyrics are so bleak but it’s all I could think of once and now it’s locked into the routine.”
“Believe me, there’s bleaker.” I told him with authority.
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure there is and that you know all of them.” (This may be shocking to read, but Mark thinks that I’m pretty dark sometimes because of all the Murder TV and……every single one of my other interests.) “But singing a song to our child about a baby dying is as bleak as I want to go here.”
“Oh the baby doesn’t die!” I goaded. “You’re being dramatic.”
“It falls out of a tree! ‘When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall, And down will come baby, cradle and all.’ ” He recited.
“…..did you just say “bow”? Like a hair bow?”
“Yeah, like the bow of a tree. A tree bow.”
“It’s bough. ” I corrected.
“That’s what I just said.”
“No, you said “bow”. It’s a tree bough- rhymes with cow.” I continued, remembering his earlier smugness and savoring the annoyance in his voice. “Gee, I hope you haven’t been instilling this sort of bad grammar in our sleeping offspring.”
He pursed his lips together and whipped out his phone. “Huh.” He said after a couple of taps on the screen. ” It’s spelled Rock- a- BYE not Rock -a –BI….”
“……”
I let subject drop since he was obviously going to be ridiculous now just so he could say he was being ridiculous the whole time and actually knows how to pronounce everything just fine, and I didn’t want to stand there and have my home be turned into a Great Hall of LIES. (Marriage pro-tip: choose your battles!)
It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one soothing our child to sleep with songs that are a little sad and a little dark, as lullabies have always tended to be.
I’ve wondered why that is.
For me, I think it’s a way of instilling a sense of comfort in the melancholy that I know will find my daughters at some point in their lives so that maybe if they have a sense of familiarity with it early on, they’ll be better prepared to cope with it.
And they’re just so catchy!
“Bayu Baushki Bayu
Do not lie down near the edge of the bed
The grey wolfie will come
He’ll grab you by your tiny side
And drag you to the forest…
Drag you to the forest…
Down under an aspen tree.”
