Everything that you read tells you to sing to your baby… well, Leighton is lucky because I kind of have an awesome voice (NOT!). I am however the daughter of Sharon Mueller… the woman that has a song for everything… no, seriously, EVERYTHING! Mom had a song for driving a car, getting dressed, eating dinner, hell… she could come up with a song about pooping if need be! She woke us up most mornings singing, “rise and shine and give god the glory glory, rise and…” I tried this the other morning and was promptly told to STOP by Jon. He said I was scaring the baby and hurting his ears... sad but probably true!
Recently, I remember Jessica Stoner telling me that she needed to learn more children’s songs after she found herself singing, Black and Yellow to her son, Collier one night. I thought, well, she didn’t have a Mom like mine who sang constantly so I should be fine with my vast catalog of Sharona classics… little did I know I was wrong! As I was putting Leighton to sleep the other night I started to sing the Humpty Dance to my sweet little bug. After realizing that even though it is my go-to karaoke song, it probably is a little inappropriate to sing to a 6 week old, so I started racking my brain. Nothing, absolutely nothing was coming to mind… I mean like awkward silence nothing… and then, just like that… I busted out, To Themis, a lovely little Zeta number we sang in college.
I remembered standing in a dimly lit chapter room singing this song with a bunch of sopranos and trying not to have my oober deep voice stand out… half the time just mouthing it… which is why I am kind of surprised I remembered all the words. Then I pulled out, In the Cellar, and although slightly inappropriate, I remembered all the words and was very impressed with myself. Those two songs got me through the night but the next day as the little lady and I were having Playmat time, I randomly started singing, Turquoise and Gray… after a few rounds Leighton and I came up with a new version;
Turquoise and Pink the colors that we wear,
Symbols of a babyhood beyond compare.
Oh, don’t you wish that you could wear them too,
If you are a baby they’d be put on you!
The munchkin thoroughly enjoyed this song and demanded that I sing it to her as she went down for her afternoon nap. That’s when I remembered why I knew all the words… they had been drilled into my head as we sang it over and over and over and over again in rituals… about the 30th time that I had
to repeat the verse to Leighton, I remembered standing in an alum’s house
singing and singing and wanting to find a gun to put myself out of my own misery… those same feelings came flooding back, but Leighton was happy so I just kept singing. I guess that is kind of what parenthood is all about right now… keeping the little one happy and putting the gun down!
Zeta love…
ZLAM! Love it!
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