When Hayley was first pregnant with Oliver I wrote a lullaby in anticipation of his/her arrival. We didn't know whether we would have a boy or a girl, so I wrote two versions with just the name changed along with a few other words (making it more suitable for a boy or girl).
I had visions of singing my baby to sleep. In fact, although Hayley and I both sang this lullaby to Oliver every night as he had his bedtime milk and do the same now with Lucy, they were never sung to sleep by the song.
Funnily, Oliver never ever sang along, even though he would sometimes interrupt his milk to sing along to other songs. But Lucy has started to request my lullaby at night by singing the opening word, "Baby, baby...". Then she will ask for an encore, sometimes several times as she lies with her head on my shoulder. (She does the same with Hayley, in fact she did it with her first.) Eventually she says "Bye byes..." meaning she wants to go to sleep and we put her in her cot, contented and ready for sleep.
Yesterday Lucy spent the afternoon with me. She hadn't slept in the morning and by about 2pm she was getting tired. I sat on the sofa with her and she climbed up my front and put her head on my shoulder. I started to sing her lullaby to her and she lay there quite happily. After a couple of renditions I asked her if she wanted to lie on the sofa next to me and go to sleep. Depsite the fact she normally fights sleep and never does this, she said "Yeah" and lay back, holding her Minnie Mouse and Upsy Daisy as I pulled a blanket over her.
I continued to sing to her and her eyes started to droop. After a couple of minutes she was fast asleep. For me, it was a little dream finally come true.
When she woke a full hour later she was as happy as can be and the two of us sat on the sofa (with my arm around her), Lucy drinking very dilute hot chocolate while I drank tea and we both enjoyed a few baked crisps as we watched a programme previewing the upcoming Champions League semi-final (Man Utd vs Arsenal). Does life get any better than that?!
Posts
2 comments:
That's awesome! No, life doesn't get any better though I would substitute a good baseball game the Soccer (sorry, football).
I never have sang Lukas to sleep. Of course I can also make dogs howl and would be great comic relief if I ever auditioned for (senior) American Idol.
James, I find Lucy is very forgiving of my crooning voice. Much more so than I imagine Simon Cowell might be.
Post a Comment