Dan and Em's Blog

I love to sing.  In high school and in college, I sang a lot, but there’s less of a market for it as an adult.  I still would sing along with songs in the car, and at a very occassional karaoke opportunity, but that was it.  I miss it, especially around the holidays — Christmas music is my favorite.

I have found two new fans, though:  my boys love for me to sing to them.  As little babies, of course, there’s plenty of opportunity to sing them pretty much whatever comes to mind, but even as they’re getting bigger, I’m grateful that they’re remaining enthusiastic.  A few weeks ago, I started singing Christmas songs to the boys while they were in the bath, and they LOVED it.  Liam smiles, transfixed, or giggles.  Benjamin starts to learn the words (and even the melodies) almost immediately — he now has a favorites list (and if I vary the words at all, he notices — I can never remember whether Santa Claus knows who’s “naughty or nice” or “naughty and nice” and he calls me on it every time I switch it, and when I finally looked up the last line of the first verse of “Good King Wenceslas” he corrected me because it was supposed to be “la la la la la la la la la la la la la la”).

I love catching Benjamin singing little pieces of the songs I’ve been singing to him — this evening, he kept singing the 8th day of Christmas, over and over.  I am really enjoying singing for them.  It’s nice to have an outlet for that part of me, and it really adds to the feeling of Christmas.

When you become a parent, you know you’re going to end up saying things like, “Finish eating dinner or you aren’t getting dessert”, or “If you guys can’t settle down, we’re going straight home”, or “If you throw that one more time, I’m not going to pick it up again”.

But there are a whole host of other things you hear coming out of your mouth that, upon further reflection (if not at the moment) are pretty funny.  This is a selection that I’ve caught myself saying over the past 6 months or so:

Stop bludgeoning your brother with that bread.  You’re getting chocolate on the radiator!  That snake is not a weapon.  Power cords are not good toys for babies.  If you run over the dog one more time with your bike, I’m not going to let you ride it in the house anymore.  Please don’t put your foot in your brother’s ice cream.  Do not run over your brother with that piano!  No pull-ups on the oven door!  Stop hitting your brother with that cow.  Don’t use the hammer on the dog.  No throwing computers at anyone’s head!  Don’t sit on your brother’s head.  No, space shuttles don’t crash in to dogs.  Stop trying to get your brother to eat his Halloween costume.  Don’t crash that plane into his head.

Seriously, I’ve said all of those things.  Recently.  Parenthood is a wild ride.

Liam is learning to talk.  Other than getting “mama” out a few times a couple of months ago, he hasn’t really said anything consistently.  In the past month, he’s learned “No!”, but that’s his answer to absolutely every question you ask him, so although he was “talking” it didn’t really count as communicating.

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Benjamin’s school hosted a “lantern evening” tonight.  Other than assuming that lanterns would somehow be involved, we really didn’t know what to expect.  I suspected there was going to be a performance of some kind, because Benjamin had been talking about “practicing his song” at school this week.  Excited about B’s first school “concert”, we went to the school this evening and assembled in the garden to see what would happen next.

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