observation

Anything can be a lullaby if you sing it quietly and think of the text as being addressed to a baby (instead of, as is usually the case, a [desired or potential or actual] lover). I've been singing "Happy Together" to the prince since we brought him home; the first time I got to "When you're near me, baby, the skies will be blue for all my life" my voice cracked and I cried. (Hormones are partly responsible.) (I just skip the "how is the weather" line the Turtles threw in because they were high thought they had to do something different at some point. It's nonsense.) I'd like it if he eventually associated that song with its being time to go to sleep, so I'm going to keep singing it to him at night. We'll see.

( Other unexpected lullabies )

a nice thing

My mom is still seeing the widowed family friend she took up with a too-short time (my brother and I felt) after my dad died. Whatever; everyone's position on that relationship - or more specifically how it began and how we learned about it - is known, and neither the circumstances nor anyone's feelings about them are going to change, so whatever. The guy himself is fine. Always has been. He's not the one we judge anyway.

Anyway though. My mom showed him a picture of me and the baby, and she tells me he just kept going on about how in it I look exactly like he thinks a new mother should look. Something about peace and love and gentleness. It is a selfie from the hospital in which I'm about 29 hours postpartum and the baby is asleep on my collarbone. We both look exhausted, as you might imagine, and nobody in the world is flattered by a hospital gown. But my mom said to hear her friend talk about it you might have thought he was looking at a Madonna and Child in a museum.

:-)