'Til This Hour Has Gone Around

What you don't know is that, when Daddy is available, every nap and every gentle night-night is preceded by track 2 from U2's album, Rattle and Hum: "Van Diemen's Land". This, I suppose, is mostly The Edge's fault as, well, if the most gigantic band in the world (at the time) can have their he-can-pretty-much-sing guitarist sing on the second track on the follow-up album to the Biggest Record EVER, then, by god, anybody can sing the damn song. Also, I remember all the lyrics. Ever since I spontaneously burst into a screwed up version of "Heartache Tonight" in front of most my fifth grade class, I've had "Lyric Block": "Ohhhhhh. . . it's "heartache tonight!". That, I blame on the waning days of great AM Radio and our hour-long bus ride to school. Heh, I almost worked at that station when I was 17. Crazy.

Anyhoooooos, I've been closing a lot of nights at Ye Olde Giant Wholesale Non-Evil Club recently, so I haven't been home for a quite a few of my nye-nye, all-A capella sets. Today, though, it's me and the boy: los lobos solos; and I got to sing to him.

This really should be a post about what it feels like when you hold the little boy in your arms and he leans his body against you, wraps his arms around your neck and rests his head on your shoulder. Sometimes, no matter how bad the singing is, he sighs with absolute contentment or gives one of those baby yawns; either of which breaks your heart and makes you love the whole world. I usually get over loving the world pretty quickly. What this post is about, though, is how much I missed crappily singing to Max these last few days. I did not know I was missing this until it was happening. I forced the poor bugger to listen to both verses and an extra chorus before I put him down. Right before I closed his door, I could see him giving me a bleary-eyed "The hell?" look. Parenthood, kids, in a nutshell.

By the end of the song, Max is really relaxed or totally traumatized. Either way, as I'm humming a little coda, he pushes off and leans back towards his crib and a bit of the old ultra-sleepy. Tragically, for Katie, this is just the beginning of a nightly U2 kick, and she has to sit there while I mangle "I Will Follow" and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" the rest of the night.