25+ years ago, I had this little munchkin. It was love at first sight and I spent the next few years as her devoted slave.
Unbeknown to the baby police and those in charge of new mothers, I developed this habit of singing her to sleep. Most especially when she was ill. And there was a 'favourites' list ...otherwise known as the songs that got her to sleep most successfully.
She still remembers them.
I have just come downstairs, from my granddaughter's bedroom, after quietly uncurling myself from the edge of her bed.
I remembered the routine for stopping the songs and the signs were all good. She had slept through the songs ending, and slept on through me cautiously moving off the bed. She slept through me leaving the room and I think we might be okay now.
It's hot here tonight. She had an incredibly late night last night and, unsurprisingly, she complained of a headache at bedtime. One that wouldn't, 'just wouldn't!' go away. And wicked gran that I am, I had no painkiller in the house. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
But there was something delicious about telling her of the songs I had always sung to her mum and that, shhhhhh, we probably shouldn't tell her mum but I was going to sing them to her too now.
Mull of Kintyre continues to be 'the' song that most successfully sends small children to sleep. But you should know, it's not a routine to enter into lightly. When you sing small children to sleep you must either stroke their forehead or walk with them in your arms while you sing ...
10 minutes, and a quiet amazement that I still knew all the lyrics, she was asleep and here I am , smiling over memories of those long ago days back home in New Zealand ... back when I was just a young mum.