This column is rapidly turning into Baby Tales as opposed to Cariboo Tales.
I mean, I was considering writing about how my driveway has turned into a twisted variant of Frogger where instead of the frog you play the car and where the frog is actually a gopher but it turned morbid (pun intended) pretty quickly.
The other thing that has dominated my last week has been poop ranging from the absolutely wicked skills babies have of projectile pooping across the room (honestly, I couldn’t do what the little critter is capable with months of practice) to my dog in a variety of scenarios but it went foul pretty quickly (pun intended). I’m sorry if it still seeps in a little.
However, more than anything, the thing that’s stuck in my head are “lullabies.”
I really can’t sing. I vaguely remember having to do a vocal performance during a high school music class that was mostly met with a muffled but totally deserved room of embarrassing laughter and a passing “C-” for trying “enthusiastically.”
Our baby has been pretty good (other than the projectile pooping).
He generally sleeps unless he’s hungry or has a dirty diaper. However, he’s had a tendency to cry during diaper changes and long car rides (long by infant standards). In a probably hopeless attempt to teach our son more than one language, we decided that my wife will exclusively speak English to him while I will exclusively speak Dutch. So during these moments, while driving or changing his diaper, I’ve been singing Dutch “lullabies.”
Possibly, as a result, the cat has lately only come in for food and usually asked to go straight back out.
The only thing is, I don’t really remember much of Dutch lullabies. This means it’s largely been Dutch pop songs I remember from growing up, which are generally entirely inappropriate ranging from hot steamy nights in foreign hotel rooms to how fast life goes by and that dad won’t be around forever.
This only half works; for some reason, it works pretty well for getting him to calm down but I don’t actually care much for the Dutch songs I end up singing.
Looking up traditional Dutch lullabies, although amusing (apparently one of the most popular choices is about mum being an ape) hasn’t helped much.
I guess as long as he and his ape, sorry I mean mum, are enjoying the “lullabies” it doesn’t matter. To be fair, she doesn’t know what the lyrics mean, but if the kid does learn Dutch successfully, and can start plotting in a language his mum doesn’t speak, I think she will have bigger problems than being called an ape.