Because "Rock-A-Bye Baby" No Longer Works.
No doubt about it, my husband has an incredible voice. It's like buttah. And when he's up on stage leading worship, singing and playing guitar it's easy to see he was created for this.
And I can understand why that little weekly snapshot might lead some people to think we have regular family sing alongs, and every night before bed the two of us gently sing the girls to sleep in four part harmony. (that might be a bit difficult to pull off.)
The von Trapp family ain't got nothin' on us.
In reality, while the guitar does come out of the case around our house, it's rarely the idyllic picture you might imagine. First off, the three year old sees the case as her imaginary horse, then the five year old pulls out her Hannah Montana battery operated guitar and competes with daddy, dueling banjos style. Meanwhile, the 8 year old believes this is a good opportunity to fine tune her vibrato skillz. After a bit, all three seem to work themselves into such a chaotic frenzy that they run around the room and crash into each other. Since witnessing this several times, I can see why the pied piper went with a wind instrument. Clearly they are more effective at controlling children than the stringed variety.
However, hope springs eternal, and so last night Ben pulled out the guitar at around 7pm. On a side note, I'm not sure why he felt the need to pull "her" out, but I try not to interfere with their relationship, as long as "she" doesn't interfere with ours. So I just kinda sat on the couch with my laptop and zoned out for a few minutes. Unfortunately after only a few moments, I was brought out of my revery by the usual cacaphony.
Do you see that all of those photos have blur marks representing crazy activity? It was insantiy. Ben sensing he needed to redirect the mob, changed the mood of the music. The notes quieted down while the strumming slowed and his voice became more hushed. He began ad-libbing a song about his daughters. It started as an ode to how much he loved them and enjoyed spending time with them and they were eating up all of the attention.
That is until the song transitioned with the words "But soon they'll be in bed and then we'll..."
"then we'll ..." and the remaining part of the song was dedicated to all of the fun things we would do once they were finally tucked in. The intensity in the song began to build as he sang about trips to ice cream stores, and parties with friends, eating at Taco Bell and buying new video games. Each line was further proof of what they had known all along. Once they go to bed the fun really begins! Ben and I howled with laughter as they cried in dismay. Phrases such as, "NOOOO!" and "Daddy that's not fair!" were barely heard over the noise of our own psychotic laughter. (Don't judge us ... you know you would have laughed too!) But the song had to come to an end and eventually it did. Once everyone had gone to the bathroom, washed their hands, brushed their teeth, and drunk the obligatory 17 glasses of water, quiet descended upon our house and we all settled in for the night.
After all three were sound asleep, Ben opened up his laptop and began working while watching a crummy (albeit Oscar nominated) movie, and, after cleaning the kitchen, I headed upstairs to put on my pjs and alternate between watching reruns of "The Cosby Show" and "House" while I folded some laundry. Exhilarating stuff.
Come to think of it, maybe we should have sang a song about what we REALLY do after they go to sleep. The sheer boredom of it all would have put them to sleep in 30 seconds flat!
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