Tell me 'bout the good ole days

I'm going to tell y'all the truth. Are you sittin' down? I'll wait.

We good? Okay. So here's the thing. I talk a lot about how I sang to Nathan or how I sing to Joshua. But the truth is I cannot carry a tune in a bucket and I ain't exactly got the crystal clear voice of an angel. There, phew, that's off my chest.

But I don't think that matters. Joshua is, shall we, very two right now. He's everywhere, into everything, never stops for longer than 2 minutes at anything. Unless...Unless, that is, I'm sitting still singing to him, or even dancing him around the kitchen singing to him until Mama's too dizzy to go on. He'll listen to anything. The acoustic stuff of Staind or Stone Sour. The real old country of Waylon and Willie and the boys. The newer country of Kenny Chesney or Blake and Miranda. The folksy Mumford and Sons. The pop Pink or Five for Fighting. As long as it's being sung in Mama's voice and Mama's got her arms wrapped tight around him, he doesn't care what it is. He'll cling, perfectly still, against me (except for an occasional sway), suck his thumb and tuck as close to me as he can, almost as if he's trying to creepily crawl back in. I'm reminded of my early years with my beloved Nany and how she'd sing and we'd dance sill-ily around the house often times wearing handkerchiefs and singing into a feather duster.

My own Mama was a hippie through and through (though she's since come to her senses) and she used to sing to me by my bedside with an acoustic guitar (the same one that sits in the corner of my bedroom, though I've no idea how to play it). Oh they weren't the happiest of songs (except for "What Color is God's Skin" which I requested nightly if memory serves). My mama knew a lot of protest songs. Really sad songs like "Where Have All The Flowers Gone" and another that I can't remember the name of about a love who sends her lover off to Vietnam. She'll probably remember the name when she reads this. When I grew older she didn't always sing me to sleep but when I'd have friends over, the coolest hippie mom ever, would get out that same guitar and sing to us on the back deck until the wee hours of the morning. There are middle years there where I was closer to Stomp's age where I'd beg her to sing songs like Desperado or an entire catalog of Reba songs, but those are the two time periods that stick out most in my mind.

I wonder if 50 25 years from now when I let my kids grow up and get married and have kids of their own, if they'll sing to them?

***EDIT***Sure 'nuff my mama knew just what song I was thinking of because even back then I had a soft spot for the melancholy. It's called "The Cruel War". Here it is done by Peter, Paul and Mary who may have been who did it originally, I am not sure.