Ok, I promise that everything I write from this point on will not solely focus on my new kids, but I thought this was funny and wanted to share.
I got up early to watch the babies while my lovely wife got an ENTIRE HOUR OF UNINTERRUPTED SLEEP. (It’s in all caps because it’s rare enough that it deserves some special distinction.) In any case, our daughter seems to be the better sleeper so far and she definitely has a quieter cry/yell, so I was more concerned with keeping our son quiet during that time. I put on a sling thing that our very-helpful postpartum doula showed me how to operate and began bouncing on a ball with him in the kids’ room. He wasn’t super happy, so I started to walk around with him strapped to my chest. This worked better, especially when I was talking to him. What can I say, I’ve got some dulcet tones.
I thought, “Even though it’s an entire hour, if it works, maybe I should just keep doing laps around the house and talking to him. That way I get some cardio in also.” Then I wondered, “But what the hell do I talk about for an hour straight?” I started with my Best Man speech for my friend Jason’s wedding that’s taking place in three weeks. That only lasted about 6 minutes because I didn’t have to stop for uproarious laughter. I’m budgeting about 45 minutes for the actual speech, of course. But I still had a bunch of time. “I know,” I thought, “I’ll sing to him. That’s a constant use of my voice and serves all of my purposes.”
Ah, but what to sing? I wanted something that I could keep doing the whole time, but nothing repetitive that would have me going crazy after only a few minutes. (There are still 93 frickin’ bottles of beer on the ball?) I settled on picking an album that I’d know well enough to keep going from song to song. Naturally, the first one that came to mind was “Dookie” by Green Day.
This was hilarious. I know he doesn’t understand words yet, so I didn’t change any of the lyrics up to make them Rated G. I just went with it. That left me with singing to my week-and-a-day old son about getting high (“Burnout”), someone blowing himself up and taking people with him (“Having a Blast”), and boredom-induced masturbation (“Longview”) before I even got to song number five. I can hear the Father of the Year committee members already knocking.
I think I’ll start with Weezer’s “Blue Album” next time, which is just as melodic to sing but without the same amount of dicey subject matter. Or maybe I should go all the way with this thing and get him started on “Big Lizard in my Backyard” by The Dead Milkmen. The songs are short, so it wouldn’t take me too long to get to “Violent School,” “Takin’ Retards to the Zoo,” “Junkie,” and “Right Wing Pigeons.” Knowledge is power, right?