A Veiled Threat

For Christmas, I received a CD of lullabies for which I am very grateful.  I would love to be able to sing a variety of songs to the monkey as he goes to sleep, but I either don’t know the tune or the words I know are inappropriate.  So I am psyched about this CD.

However.  I am noticing that many of the songs are either veiled threats to the child if s/he does not go to sleep or are increasing desperate pleas for the child to get some shut-eye.

Rock-A-Bye Baby, for instance:  If you don’t go to sleep, you’re going to fall out of a tree. 

All the Pretty Horses:  “Down in the meadow, lies a poor little lambie. Bees and butterflies picking at his eyes, poor little thing is cryin’ Mammy.”  Yikes!  That should send the little one off to sweet dreams.

My favorite ones are the desperate pleas, though, especially this one, Go To Sleep:  “Go to sleep.  Go to sleep, sleep, sleep.  Go to sleep little one.”  I can just imagine getting stuck on those lines and just repeating sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep until either the child or the singer drifts off. 

Of course, in most of these songs, and especially the desperate ones, there are a lot of verses aimed at indoctrinating the singer about how much s/he is going to protect and love this child once it gets to sleep (presumably the lines are to reassure both parent and child that the parent is not about to lose it due to lack of sleep):  “Close your eyes and dream tender dreams, for you are guarded, protected by my love,”  “I my loving vigil keeping, all through the night,” “Round thee mother’s arms are folding, in her heart a mother’s love,” yadda yadda yah.  

Still, I like the CD and I like singing the songs. 

Uh, wait.  The little guy has been down for two hours and has just woken back up.  Must go boob him.  I really, really miss those days of 11 hour nights of sleep. 

9:35:38 PM