“Good morning, Crabby Appleton, how do you feel today? Will you laugh and squeal and smile at me, or will you growl and bark and bray?” — CJ Woods, III
My lean and football-hardened 14-year-old grandson planted his 150-pound body onto his mother’s lap, an almost nightly ritual between the two of them. In a continuation of a conversation with me, Lisa asked Xavion the name of the kindergartener who used to irritate him because he would “cheat” off of Xavion’s papers. “Mom! He doesn’t know his letters, he doesn’t know his numbers, he doesn’t know his colors!” Xavion’s teachers recognized the unusual agitation of the normally calm and compliant student and made an effort to avoid seating him with the other student. My daughter and I then reminisced about the 3-year-old who learned his address from a song by his grandfather.
Music has always been a large part of my life and I conferred it onto my children — and later — their children. Time might have “held me green and dying,” but just as Dylan Thomas wrote in Fern Hill, “… I sang in my chains like the sea,” sang through my days and nights. When my eldest daughter was young, I wrote a song for a group I belonged to, a song with her in mind. It began, “Beautiful lady, shining star/The future is yours; do you know who you are?” When Lisa graduated from “daughter” to “grandchild delivery device,” I sang to her son, and when it became important for him to know his address, I taught him this catchy tune: “21 Pearsall Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey!” Now, I sing a song to his sister, an energetic version of a song that I learned from my father: “Go to sleep, little baby; momma and papa are go’n to town, to get that baby some candy.” (Imani is 10 years old now, so this is not sung as a lullaby.) On a recent visit to New Jersey, my grandson came away from his Xbox long enough for me to catch him softly singing, “Thunder, and a butt-pat…” I chuckled to hear that, for his Aunt Lauren told me that when soothing her new daughter Myah, I needed to do so with “movement, and a butt-pat.” I co-opted an Imagine Dragons song, and came up with, “Thunder, and a butt-pat, movement and a butt-pat.”
Lauren was a crabby morning girl when she was small, and I made up a “Good Morning” song for her that I sang to her when she woke up; she did not like it, but I never gave up on the comfort and joys of song. Now Lauren sings to Myah, “Good morning in the morning, and I love you in the morning…” Lauren’s friend Amy asked her if everything she said to Myah was turned into a song. “Yes,” she laughed, and I thought, “she got it honestly.” I sang Al Jarreau’s exultant “Mornin’ Mr. Radio, mornin’ little Cheerio,” to her sister and goofy-danced around the room as Spyro Gyra played “Morning Dance.” And I am still a morning person who loves to sing to the dawning day and the children within it. My youngest granddaughter cannot answer the question, but every day she is in my company I sing to her, “Do you love me, yes or no? If you love me, let it show! Do you love me, yes or no?”
I end my morning song to Myah in this way: “Good morning, Princess Appleton, I’m glad to see your face. I’ll dance around the room with you, ‘cause I love you in this place.”