Much

When Phoebe was a baby I made up the Fee-fi-Phoebe song for her. It was no great feat of composition, I just improvised the lyrics of what is already a nonsense song -- the Fee-fi-fiddli-i-oh section of I've Been Working on the Railroad/Someone's in the Kitchen with Dinah. (Are those supposed to be two separate songs? I've never quite understood their relationship.) Thus:

Fee fi Phoebe i oh
Fee fi Phoebe i oh oh oh oh
Fee fi Phoebe i oh
Phoebe I love you so!

I sang it quite a bit when she was an infant, but she was never the type of kid who liked to be sung or rocked to sleep, so after a while it faded away. I revived during the great Tantrum Week of 2007 (the tantrums really did only last a week, go figure), and now Phoebe asks me to sing it to her, or can be heard singing it to herself.

The adorable part is that after I sing the last line, "Phoebe I love you so," Phoebe chimes in with, "Much!"

And it's true.

---

I sang to Mallory a lot; it was part of our bedtime ritual for many, many months. I always sang the same three songs: "I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" (from Sesame Street), "The Rainbow Connection", and Mary Chapin Carpenter's "Dreamland". I wonder if she remembers that: snuggled on my lap, rocking in the glider, being sung to sleep. Probably not. Maybe it's enough that I remember it.

---

Phoebe is a great singer; she can approximate the words for all of the songs we regularly play on the ipod while driving to school. For example, there's a Drake Bell song, one of Mallory's favorite, that goes: "Baby, give me a sign, give me a reason, make up your mind." Phoebe sings:

"Baby, give me a sign, give me a pizza, make up your mind."

I'd rather have a pizza too.