The Business of Lullabies

I do not fancy myself a superb singer. I will never be that girl who sends chills down people’s spines when I hit that one note, because it’s pretty damn certain I won’t ever hit that one note. Believe me, I’ve tried. No crowds will ever fill Madison Square Garden just because I’m there to sing; although I have no doubt that my Rockstar, my brother, and I will fill it when we finally start our band. I can carry a tune, and sound better than about half the people you hear attempting to sing, including Taylor Swift. Nevertheless, I fully intend to sing to my baby once he gets here. I just hope my doing so will not cause more tears than are normally expected from a baby.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the songs I use as lullabies may very well be the songs my baby uses as lullabies to his own children someday, if he has any. (The continued use of male pronouns in reference to my baby are my way of using osmosis to decide his gender for him. He has no legs yet, so there is no way he has yet sprouted a teeny tiny penis. But I will continue to try to sway him.) Or, if nothing else, they will be songs he fondly remembers as ones his crazy mother sang to him because she loved him. Either way, this is not business that should be taken lightly. Music is the poetry of sound. So instilling in my baby a vast library of musical genres is a must. So far, here is my lullaby list:

For standards, I’ve only yet come up with two:

1. Over the Rainbow

2. Baby Mine from Dumbo

Moving along to somewhat newer music:

3. Let It Be by The Beetles

4. You’re Beautiful by James Blunt (Sidenote: As this James Blunt song is about a girl who is addicted to drugs, I feel that I may only sing the chorus so as not to introduce my babe to such evility prematurely.)

5. Jesus Loves Me

6. Give Me Love by Jasmine Cain (a mostly-independent artist, but a great song)

7. I’ll Be There by The Jackson 5 (or Mariah Carey, if you prefer)

8. True Colors by Cyndi Lauper

9. The Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog (a song my uncle used to sing to me when I was small)

10. Silent Night (a Christmas song, sure, but what better to sing about than the night I hope to have?)

11. Love is Forever by Slaughter

12. Unconditionally by Katy Perry

13. Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers

This is only a start, so I open my lullaby list to those of you in blogland, so speak now. Just know that Rob Zombie and Iron Maiden will have to wait just a year or two.

On Nausea and Still Remaining Myself

Pregnancy is not an excuse.

Yes, ok, I haven’t written on my blog (or anywhere else, for that matter) for a shameful 18 days; my longest hiatus from blogging yet, I believe. I haven’t drunk coffee or whisky or any mind-altering substance for many weeks, (and I do not intend to for many many more weeks). When I go out to eat in a nice restaurant with edible food, I can no longer finish my Rockstar’s meal after snarfing down my own. In fact, I cannot even finish my own meal, and have taken to sharing. I still think of sex more often than the average person, but I also think of sleep more than a two-toed sloth. I remind myself of one thing:

This, too, shall pass.

Whereas in past times not so long ago, any text message I received was almost immediately responded to, I have become a textical hermit. My repeated responses of “Not good. Puking all day. Sleeping when not puking.” I’m sure got old quickly when people asked how I was faring, and quite honestly, that exact response sums up the last eighteen days frighteningly well. It didn’t help that last week when my Rockstar had an entire week off between changing jobs, and instead of indulging in an all-week fuckfest with him, I was forced to hack and cough and blow my nose in between naps when I contracted the Mother of All Colds. The only upside was that the nausea that had continued to haunt me for over a month has finally begun to subside; I am no longer hurling unless I’ve not eaten within two hours. Yay me.

For the entirety of my adult life, I have begun planning my Halloween costume for each year in mid-summer. Not so this year. In fact, yesterday was the first day that I realized Halloween is less than two months away, and I said to myself, “Self! Enough of this bull-shit! You’re fucking dressing up, even if it is as a horse wearing a feed bag in order to catch the vomit!” There will be no alcoholic libations, but at least I have a house this year, so I plan on celebrating by scaring the beJesus out of the neighborhood childlings. The buzz from such doings will certainly suffice.

I realize that when you become a mother, (which I’m not, quite yet, anyway) you change. But I’ll be damned if everyone I know will only engage in conversations with me that pertain to my child, now or later. People without kids have lives, and do things, whether the People With Kids believe it or not. I will never enjoy talking about diaper genies and the latest invention created to make parenthood easier. I will, however, speak of sexually deviant practices with whomever is interested, even when my waistline is 57″.  I am not complaining about where my future is headed in the least, only stating how perturbed I am that having my head in a toilet has kept me from doing the things I wanted in the last weeks.

P.S. The ultrasound specialist assures me that my baby’s lack of legs and arms is a natural thing at this point. I pray he’s not just placating me.