Indiana Idylls

Walking and singing to Alex, I'm learning how very few songs I know, and how for some that I think I know, I only know a verse or two. I quickly exhaust -- or simply tire of -- my limited repertoire of children's songs, and so it was the other day that I started singing "There's no Business Like Show Business" to Alex -- anything to cheer him up. As it happens, he liked the song but I basically only know the title line and a handful of non-sequential other lyrics. Yesterday, again faced with an over-tired, unhappy baby, I thought to dig out the CD and have a listen. I've got the song on a compilation disc of favorite Broadway tunes. I jump to track five and Alex LOVED it. He immediately piped down and listened intently to the whole song. Next up: "Almost Like Being In Love," the classic ballad from Brigadoon . Alex resumed screaming. I skipped back to "There's no Business..." and he got real quiet again and fell asleep. He even let me p...

Alex and I were "playing", and it amused me to think that this little person grunting excitedly next to me would grow up to be more or less like me: probably go to college, get a job, find a nice girl, get married, and have some little grunters of his own. He can't even reliably get his hand to his mouth! You, me, the Pope, the President... we all started out this way! It boggles the mind.

Let's see if I can resurrect this after yet another hiatus, this one owed to the haze of new motherhood. I certainly don't have time to email, so perhaps I can keep everyone in the loop this way. I've just put Alex down for the third time tonight and am waiting to see if sleep sticks this time around. "Third time's a charm" doesn't generally apply to babies. Then again, "sleep" doesn't always apply to babies. It's a good thing they're so gosh darn cute. Tonight Alex was obviously very tired and was fussing -- crying, really -- pretty hard. Suddenly he got very quiet and yawned, as if to say he were tired of his own shenanigans, before starting back up as vigorously as before. Several many choruses of a taize prayer song later, I actually put him to bed drowsy and continued singing and he seems to have fallen asleep. I was feeling so proud of myself that I was sure he'd pop back up. It's been nearly 30 minutes now, though, so ...