The house I grew up in is about one mile from the house my dad grew up in.
And the house my dad grew up in is about a quarter mile from the church where I went to nursery school.
My grandma was actually one of my teachers there.
And fairly often, when nursery school was over,
we would walk back to her house .
I would do something fun with her,
and then I would take a nap upstairs in my dad’s old room.
And every time,
my grandma would rub my back and sing me a couple songs.
She almost always sang Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word…
That song will always remind me of naptime at Grandma’s.
I loved going to her house and the whole naptime routine.
So that has become the bedtime routine here.
Numbers 3, 4, and 5 share a room.
Once everyone is in their beds, I climb in with them,
sing them a song,
and rub or tickle or scratch their backs.
Number 5 is a rubber.
Number 4 is a scratcher.
Number 3 is a tickler/scratcher combo.
It’s a production,
and sometimes I sing the songs way faster than others,
but I know they will look back on this nighttime routine very fondly.
They may even pass the tradition on to their own kids.
And I know,
the day is going to come,
when they don’t want me to touch them anymore,
or where singing a song is
not cool, Mom.
So I am trying to remember that, as I am struggling to stay awake myself when I am singing Do-Re-Mi for the 197th time.
When I was in elementary school, my music teacher was Mr. M.
He was a character.
He had a kind of lateral lisp.
Spit would often fly out of the corners of his mouth as he taught us, with incredible enthusiasm, to keep time to the music by saying ta, ta, tee, tee, ta.
He taught us this song called Fifty, Nifty, United States.
The lyrics contain all 50 states in alphabetical order.
When I was little, my dad said to me,
“I bet when you’re 21, you won’t remember the words to that song.”
Well,
I’m 43.
And I remember them all.
And now,
so do Number 3,
and Number 4,
and Number 5.
And so,
Mr. M.,
wherever you are,
I tip my hat to you on this day after the 4th of July.
My kids know the names of all the states,
in alphabetical order,
thanks to you.
And Fifty Nifty, as we call it here,
is the current favorite song of at least three kids in this house.
Happy Day after the 4th!
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That is so sweet. I also lay down with all three of my boys at night and sing to them. It’s always the same three songs in the same order every night. Some people give me a hard time because I lay down with them but like you said there will be a day when they don’t want me in their room at all let alone to lay in bed with them. So, even when I need mommy wind down time(a glass of wine) I make time for this and sometones sing the songs faster than they were intended to be sung but I know it is something my boys will remember when they are older and even if they don’t sing to their kids they will tell them how thier mommy used to sing to them and they will remeber how much they were loved because I sure as hell don’t always feel like laying in there all the time:-) Thank you for sharing all of your stories about your family with us. I read all of them
My husband always shows off how he can say the States alphabetically because of that song. He has tried to teach me, but I can’t remember it like he can. 🙂
My fourth grade teacher taught us that song- I’ve been working on teaching it to my littles, never know when u will need to be able to rattle all fifty states! Many a times I have been able to answer trivia qs thanks to Mr. Hund- will never forget that song “Alabama, Alaska, Arizona…”
I too learned that song in 4th grade and still sing it today when trying to remember all of the states. I love reading books to my kids before bed and they have a cd from my mom that they all have listened to at bedtime. My 2nd is now getting her own room and we had to download the night time cd on her mp3 player so she could get to sleep. She also listened to the cd while in the hospital on 3 occasions. They will remember those songs for their whole lives and hopefully the books that I have read over and over.
I too learned the song along with a song of the presidents I am teaching that to my 6 yr old. 😉