Your Song

When I was a kid, my Mom had a song for all three of her kids. Each was a old folk ballad she'd sing to get through the long nights with babies. I remember one family trip in the car when she sang my oldest brother's song while we drove through the long night. He was 16 years old, but that familiar old lullaby put him right to sleep.

Now I've got my own kids. I tried my hand at the lullabies I grew up on, lots of them local folk ballads and they just didn't feel right. Gradually over the past few years my husband and I have found songs for our children, songs that they love and that we love to sing with and for them. Songs that comfort them in sickness, sleepiness, or just need of us. Much to our delight, four unique songs became their favourites.

Biggest girl, our Princess par excellence, took an immediate liking to this song. Cinderella is her favourite princess, so of course she'd love this song. She likes to sing it to us now, which is a real heart breaker:

Biggest boy gravitated immediately to one of his Daddy's favourites, Beautiful Boy by John Lennon. Although we do love John Lennon's original, the boy prefers the cover from the Amnesty International album Instant Karma, sung by Ben Harper (that's my boy!). Every night, he begs us to sing this at least once, but especially when he's feel low. He's even got little hand gestures for certain parts to illustrate it.

Our almost three year old boy also loves to hear Beautiful Boy, but his favourite song has become the short but sweet "Love you Forever" from the Robert Munsch book (one of his favourite books too). He calls it the dragon song (which he tells us he is) because the first time we heard it sung was on a very old TV special that they have on Netflix. What could be better than being told that you'll be loved forever, liked for always, and my baby as long as I live? So sweet.

Baby girl's song was chosen for her. Maybe as she gets older she'll change her mind, but somehow I doubt it. When I was still pregnant with her there was one song that always made her dance in my womb. Once she was born, that song carried both of us through the early sleepless nights of breastfeeding. Now that she's a year and a half, it's the song I sing to her as we dance our way through the days. It's Bob Dylan's "If Not for You", although the version I'm in love with is the cover by Derek Webb and his wife Sandra McCracken.

And finally we have a song that my husband and I love to listen to over and over again. It's kind of our theme song for this stage of our life as a family. Every time it comes on I want to gather up all my little blessings and give them lots of hugs and kisses.