Her name was Magil, she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Nancy

The girls are really into bedtime songs right now and it is one of my favorite times of the day.  It is sort of a "Mama" thing to do so it feels like special time, and they get pretty into it.  They make me sit in the chair and Char stands up at the end of her crib to watch.  I don't deserve such an amazing audience. 

But, let's be real, Mama has to put some time into sourcing new material.  I tend to throw a song into the mix every time they pitch a fit ("I no like that one!") and, in an effort to maintain the peace, I just start singing whatever comes to mind.

Let me suggest that you refrain from starting American Pie, even if you can think of nothing else.  Fortunately for me, they don't actually understand song structure or know lyrics so I can cut things short.

The fun thing about songs is it is a vocabulary exercise too.  They punctuate my vocal stylings with a lot of "What that is?" or "Why he do that?"  I try to power through a bit or the songs get really long.  Still, it is really fun to see what they pick up on.

The current hit list includes:

• Circle Game (Joni Mitchell) 
• All God's Critters (folk song, don't know author)
• Leaving on a Jet Plane (probably more the J. Denver version than Peter, Paul, and Mary) 
• Puff, the Magic Dragon (P, P, & M)
• Stewball (P, P & M).  "Mama, why horsie drink wine?" Because he is a silly horse, Em.
• Rocky Raccoon (Beatles). Again, think before you sing.  Kids love Raccoons! Yes, but this song is actually just about violence and things you don't want to have to explain. I end up mumbling a lot so I don't have to explain what "shoot off the legs of his rival" means.
• Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell)
• American Pie (Don McLean). We have yet to get to the part where the Jester sang for the king and queen.  We'll be working on this one for a while.

So, it turns out lots of ballads or other songs that seem stylistically suited for bedtime are totally depressing.  I welcome any suggestions that might have a better message and are fairly down tempo. 

Clearly I have a love of folk music so I imagine we'll be working our way through the classic and newer folk catalogs for a long time.