Songs for Arthur
The role of day-to-day nonsense in parenthood, and a silly poem (chant?) about my son's devotion to bananas.
Arthur turned one a few weeks ago.
Can you believe it? Me neither. Especially considering he’s easily the size of your average two-year-old, tracking on the 99th percentile for height; if you’ve met me or Alex that won’t surprise you, seeing as we both look like we could crush puny, normal humans like bugs.
That makes it just over a year since I became a mother. I’ve been pondering for a while what to write about the literally mind-altering experience of motherhood, but it’s so difficult to capture the truth of it in a way that satisfies me.
What is the truth? That I’m a different person now, and people told me I would be but I didn’t believe them — and it’s okay, because I like mother-me a lot, maybe more. That for me, this will always be the cleverest, most difficult, most impressive, most fulfilling thing I’ll ever do. That until now I didn’t understand motherhood or what it meant; that it was creative and powerful (and knackering) and a stunning, acrobatic feat of care and love and logistics.
I don’t know. That still doesn’t cover it. There aren’t enough adjectives.
But while motherhood is all of these big, sometimes difficult to comprehend things, it’s lots of smaller, everyday things too. It’s fun. It’s tiring. And often, it’s very, very silly.
Alex and I have always been pretty silly people, but parenting has taken us to ridiculous new heights of nonsense. The nicknames. The games. The dodging of tiny pointing fingers, primed and ready to be shoved up noses (yesterday Arthur got me in both nostrils at once). But most of all: the singing.
Ridiculous, crafted-on-the-spot songs have formed the soundtrack to our first year with Arthur. There’s his nap lullaby, invented while desperately bopping him around the kitchen:
He’s a little baby guy
flying up there through the sky
he’s a little baby guy
who will catch him flying so high?
During a long, long car journey, this one grew legs and ran off into the distance, attaining multiple new verses in which he’s a baby dude (‘flying in the baby nude’) a baby chap, a baby friend and a baby pal. There’s the non-seasonal lyrics to ‘Silent Night’, created after Christmas so I didn’t bore myself with carols long into the new year:
Let’s say goodnight
Let’s say goodnight
Everything is alright
There goes Arthur waggling ‘round
Little baby making such big sounds
It’s time to rest your head
It’s time for bed.
And then there are the fleeting nonsense verses, plucked from the first thing we see and usually conjured during a fit of crying, like:
Are you tired or are you sad?
Are you feeling kinda bad?
Are you tired or are you mad?
Is Mummy in big trouble?
Or:
Music music music note
Music music music note
Music music music note
Do you like this song I wrote?
Reader, he did not like it. Then the other day, to the tune of the hymn ‘Water of Life’, Alex started up with:
It’s teaspoon
Teaspoon the bear
Teaspoon teaspoon teaspoon the bear
And that’s not even scratching the surface of the countless verses invented for marathon renditions of ‘Old McDonald’ (for starters, in our house it’s ‘Grandad Allen had a farm’), ‘The Wheels On the Bus’ and ‘Hush Little Baby’.
Because ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you sing.
But you must. Not. Stop.
For me, singing these silly songs brought little rays of creativity into long days and nights; challenged me to rhyme when I was a long way from picking up a pen. And the worse they turned out, the more fun they were. Even if they didn’t send the baby to sleep.
So, this week I’m sharing another song for Arthur; a poem I wrote for his birthday. It reads like someone wrote it in 45 seconds while feeding a banana to a baby, and sure, that’s where it came from, but let me tell you: I spent way longer obsessing over the syllables than that.
It’s inspired by the updates we get from nursery after snack and mealtimes; some things are ‘refused’ or ‘some’ or ‘tried’, but if there’s banana on the table it’s always, always all. When you say the word ‘banana’, he laughs and points at the fruit bowl.
Alex says it’s his favourite poem I’ve ever written. Take from that what you will.
Anyway, enjoy. And may you experience earnest, toddler-esque enthusiasm for something this week — or find a silly song in your weekend. Bye 🍌
Banana (all)
yes yes yes yes
give me that banana treat
please please please please
peel it now for me to eat
yum yum yum yum
if I could I’d eat the skin
yum yum yum yum
but you’ve chucked it in the bin
oh no oh no
I ate it and now it’s gone
I know I know
go get me another one
Wonderful ! 🥰