My New Year's Resolutions for 2011 are: Put on weight, start smoking, drink more and exercise less. I'm not sure the latter is actually possible but you've got to have goals. Maybe I'll get a stair lift.
2010 was remarkable. This time last year, Spud and I had no thoughts of babies and only a vague idea that we might live together. And we expected to be living in edgy Zone 1 South London, with its characters and chancers, not leafy village South London, where there is a boulangerie, yet no kebab shop. *splutters*
The arrival of Kit meant that our housing priorities changed. An extra bedroom became 'essential', rather than 'desirable' and drive-by shootings dropped off the radar altogether.
So singing lullabies on acid to an entirely new person hadn't crossed my mind a year ago.
To be clear, I haven't whacked myself up with blotter and floated above the infant, singing out of my eye - those days are gone. But I realised that whoever wrote these ditties had access to some powerful gear.
You won’t find it in the baby books but it seems the main function of parenthood is to coax the little darlings into unconsciousness as often as possible, for as long as possible. One desperate night I turned to song, the last trick up my sleeve before brandy. A lullaby came instantly to mind:
Rock-a-bye-baby
On the tree top
A baby on the treetop? That's a health and safety nightmare right there. Who puts a baby at the top of tree? Batshit mad people, that's who.
When the wind blows
The cradle will rock
If the bough breaks
The cradle will fall
Down will come cradle
Baby and all
My point exactly. If the cradle isn't tethered and harnessed within health and safety guidelines an otherwise avoidable accident becomes inevitable.
Extensive research reveals (OK, Wikipedia reveals) that a likely origin of Rock-a-bye Baby is a dark tale of a royal baby swap, committed to provide a Catholic heir to King James II. The "wind" being a wind of change that would see William of Orange depose James in a revolution. So not only is the lyric a nightmarish tale of parental stupidity, its hidden meaning is one of religious bigotry and royal twattery.
Vowing never to darken his cot with such trauma again, I tried Rockaway Beach but was drowned out by wailing.
Ultimately you have to go with whatever works. The tree death song it is then…
