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.

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?

Nah. It's most torture-tastic for surly Waver teenagers who are already exhibiting signs of nightowl-dom.

My mom would wait until we made our appearance at the top of the stairs leading down to the kitchen and sing "Good morning to you, good morning to you. We're all in our places with bright shining faces, Good morning to you!" She sings around the house all the time--mostly hits from the 40s. "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Try a Little Tenderness" are two of her favorites.

Gud sounds like the cutest daddy ever.

Except for Hec, who also sings little improvised songs to wake Emmett up and get him to sleep and eat his cereal and take a bath and do his math homework and, well, really everything except baseball, because that would probably cause him to perish of terminal humiliation.

Vonnie and ita are reminding me that I've been meaning to change my tag for a few days now.