Since Reuben's arrived Aaron and I have both been more musical. That isn't much of a change for Aaron but I feel like I'm going from 0 to 60. And I've noticed both of us are struggling to figure out just what to sing. I left Reuben with Aaron one night and from the other room I heard him serenaded to the Aunt Jemima pancake song, the Folgers coffee song (The Best Part of Waking Up), Run DMC, a McDonalds McMuffin song I wasn't familiar with, The Hobbit song, and other entirely unedifying tunes. I'm guilty too. I think, I'll just make up some little melody and then I realize I am humming the opening music to Star Trek and I think, Reuben I'm so sorry - you are now destined to get beat up in middle school. But I can't help it. I'm in a pinch and it's the first thing that comes out of my mouth which is terrifying. We've taken to tweaking some of the words and so a few of our new favorites now go like this
(To the Hobbit Song)
Reuben, Reuben James only two feet long,
Reuben, Reuben Cummings bravest little baby of them all.
He went to the Dr. duh-duh-duh
Then he went to a movie. du-du-du
He started a fire. duh-duh-duh
A magic ring he stole. (At this point I couldn't think of anything else and had to go back to the original lyrics)
(To The Battle Hymn of the Republic)
Reuben James Cummings will not wake up
Reuben James Cummings will not wake up
Reuben James Cummings needs to wake up so he can eat!
Reuben Cummings wake up now. (repeat 3 times)
Reuben James Cummings wake up and have something to eat.
Aaron adjusts a lot more songs, mostly stuff from musicals, but I don't really know them well enough to sing. I do sing Reuben the Who Am I song from Les Miserable but it goes Who Am I? I'm Reuben James! (not Jean val Jean)
But Reuben is probably used to it. The kids musical taste were probably skewed from the start. He went to New Pornographers, Feist, Radiohead and Ben Folds concerts and listened to a lot of Belle and Sebastian and Swedish pop (Irene and the Sambassadeurs) in utero. Now tht he's here and his tender, blank slate of a mind is before us I keep thinking I should dig out the Mozart, which I do enjoy, but I am really enjoying The Fratellis right now. So Reuben gets to too. You can give them a listen here. Punk inspired brit music for nap time - good stuff.
3 comments:
Katy, this post really brought me back to when my oldest was newborn and like you I imagined I would sit around rocking him and singing all these great songs but when it came time to sing I could never remember any and I just ended up singing James Taylor or commercial jingles, or anything pathetic like that. I actually wrote some lyrics down in my "free time" and put them in a card file and kept it in the nursery because I could never think of anything on the spot.
Just warning you, the same thing will happen with bedtime stories a few years from now.
Love your cutie pie!
That was a very funny story about the theater. Hope you get to see the rest someday.
I went to a lapsit program at the library where we learned how to sing to our babies. It was so ridiculous, but at least I remember all the old songs and nursery rhymes now!
that's so funny. I think Brandon sings more random things than I do. I sing him the ABC's song the most because it makes him a lot more excited than other songs. who knows why?
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