I saw someone ask the question online a while ago that said, “What lullaby did you sing to your child?” I knew right away what my answer was.
I have four kids. I have sung the same thing to all of them. I remember holding my oldest in my arms when she was a newborn. It was just her and me in the rocking chair. I was trying to give her mom some much-needed rest because in those early days, she was having to wake every three hours to feed our daughter and it was a struggle because we didn’t want her to take a bottle yet. As a dad, I felt kind of useless because I don’t really have anything to do.
I am not a feeder, and I still had to go to work every day. The nursery was dark, my daughter was wide awake, and we might have even had one of those stupid fake heartbeat things going. I have never been much of a singer, but TV tells us that babies like to be sung to.
I wanted to give my wife as much sleep as possible so I sang the first song that came to mind: Eve 6, Anytime.
I love that song. It has nothing to do with babies or love or anything remotely related to sleep. But, I panicked and that was what came to mind. I am literally sitting here right now singing the lyrics to myself, trying to come up with a tag line or a title for this post that has anything to do with babies. There is nothing really, but you know, I turned that song into a lullaby.
This was over a decade and three more children ago. I don’t remember if my daughter went to sleep that night. (Probably not, I’m really a horrible singer.) But I have sung that song as a lullaby for every one of our kids. I remember the shock they had when they first heard the actual song on the radio—it must have sounded different when it was done by guys with talent.
My youngest would call it the “Daddy song” and even request my wife to sing it. (Unfortunately, my wife is not as much of an Eve 6 fan and she didn’t know the words.) But, that became one of my few “dad” things to our young children and I love it. They are all old enough now to where we don’t have to sing them lullabies but I remember that song as my one link to them that was just the children and me.
P.S. Sometimes I would mix in some Johnny Cash—I Walk The Line.