My kids are sort of cute when I have to wake them up. Leif just collapses on my shoulder, and Emaryn sort up communicates in grunts before she gets up and wanders around like a zombie.

Singing mothers. Weird.

My mom sings all. the. time. It's like being in my own private Rogers & Hammerstein hell. Her usual morning song was "O What A Beautiful Morning" from Oklahoma! Oy. AND oi.

Dear Aimee - nothing in that song says anything about ugly. People scare animals without being ugly.

Sometimes I make up songs I sing to the kids, like "It's Baaaaath Tiiiiiiime". More often, I talk only in rhymes and see how long it takes them to notice it.

My must-watch-on-the-night-of TV shows right now are Survivor and I just got into Arrested Development.

For me this year, it is 24, Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica and as much as possible, The Daily Show. Eyes sounds interesting. I might see if I can fit it in.

ETA: my dad was the singer around our place. My mum never had much faith in her singing voice, I guess. My old man was quite the guy when he was younger, even when my sister and I were growing up, before he got beat down by life, I guess. People want others to hide that light under a bushel basket, real bad.

I'd rather have the rat flinging as a kid than the "You're so ugly, you caused the heavens to disappear" song singing mom.

Well, my mother isn't one for metaphor. She just made do with "you're ugly."

But in a cool way, of course.

She could sing, I think, because she used to tour the West Indies singing in a choir. I'm not sure I heard it outside of church, and we really didn't church often at all.

I must state for the record that my mother, on weekend mornings, would put on a record called Olatunji Drums of Passion, and turn up the volume to 11.

As cruel wakeups go, at least it was educational, and funny.

Now, we are all a family of morning people (some obscenely so), except for the Idiot Brother, who still likes to get up at noon.

Dear Aimee - nothing in that song says anything about ugly. People scare animals without being ugly.

It's possible I could have been projecting.

Well, my mother isn't one for metaphor. She just made do with "you're ugly."

I love an honest mom.

It's like being in my own private Rogers & Hammerstein hell. Her usual morning song was "O What A Beautiful Morning" from Oklahoma! Oy. AND oi.

t coughs nervously

Does it count as torture if the person on the receiving end of this song is just a wee little baby, and it makes her smile?

I sing "One" to Emeline.

I am a Singing Mother with a minivan.

Oy.