I couldn't sleep again last night. Insomnia has been a common occurrence in my life, starting long before I went to bed with a baby monitor on the night table near my head. As I flip from my stomach to my back, frustrated by the heat and the sheets and Mister A snoring blissfully beside me, I try to quell the laundry list of to-dos and what ifs populating my mind. Often, I replay a song in my mind, usually the last one I heard during the day. The fact that I can "hear" music when I'm not actually listening to it is just another quirk I've had all my life. I sing constantly as I go about my day. So, last night, as I lay in restless repose, I shut my eyes and listened to the music in my head. The problem was that it wasn't a favorite song, or even a catchy Top 40 number. It was a song about bellybuttons. And not even a good one.
When I was pregnant with Master X, one of my greatest hopes, in addition to raising a happy and well-mannered child, was to instill a love of fine music in my little person. Along with darling onesies and miniature collared shirts, I procured lullaby versions of Smashing Pumpkins, U2, Radiohead, and the Cure. (The same company makes a Metallica CD, but I couldn't reconcile myself to playing 'Enter Sandman' as my newborn nodded off to sleep.) My music education plan was great in theory, but has thus far flopped in live trials. Try as I might, and maybe I didn't turn the volume up high enough when he was in utero, Master X doesn't care for any of it. Sure, he bops his head and waves his arm to 'Seven Nation Army,' but for the most part, everything I want him to like falls on deaf ears (luckily not literally... he hears perfectly). What he prefers to my carefully chosen playlist, and by that, I mean what he WANTS is a ridiculous and somewhat pervy song about bellybuttons.
Woven into an insidiously catchy melody on his favorite pre-bedtime DVD, the only one he cares to watch right now, are lyrics that make Mister A and I snicker and cringe in equal measure. As a generally pantless Master X shakes and twists to the sound, strange cow, sheep and dog creatures with pulsating blue navels sing about bellybuttons, saying things like "when you touch it, great things happen" and calling it "my tiny tickle dot." In the context of a baby video, perhaps the wording is benign, but in the adult world, well, it creeps me out. (What was this nameless company thinking?)
But Master X doesn't care what the mutant animals are saying. He just wants to dance with them, laughing happily as they tickle one another on screen. He points eagerly at the television, furiously shaking his head "no" until I get to the right part. And because I cherish him more than anything in the world, and watching him groove around the living room in his diaper without a care is about the most precious thing I've ever seen, I am hereby surrendering what little sanity I have left to endure the bellybutton song, day and night.
Just don't call child services if you hear me singing it on the street.
That's so cute! X's legs are as fat as R's!
ReplyDelete