The Songs Parents Play in Their Heads
Many are oldies but goldies. Rings a bell to you?
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Kid: Let’s wake up! chirps a little voice at an unearthly early hour.
Parent: Hmm… Wake Me Up When September Ends! I was dreaming…
Kid: Waaaake up, September ended! What’s September?
Parent: No, really, haven’t I told you if you wake up before the sun is up to go play with your toys?
Kid: But the sun is rising. I can feel it. Let’s go watch the sunrise together! Oh, look, I’m Walking On Sunshine! continues the chirpy little voice while hopping out of bed and jumping on a ray of light, the only ray of light projected on the dark room’s floor.
Parent: Indeed, it feels like the House of the Rising Sun. Let’s wake up. I needed to pee anyway.
Kid: What did you make me for breakfast?
Parent: You mean while I was sleeping? Nothing. I was sleeping.
Kid: But I’m huuuungry.
Parent: Me too! What did you make me for breakfast? thinking of Deep Blue Something and some Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
Kid: Nothing. I was sleeping. Let’s check the fridge.
Parent: You won’t find much in there. Let’s get us some Milk And Toast And Honey.
Parent drags feet over the kitchen, possibly playing Nelly Furtado’s I’m Like A Bird. If only flying away was an option.
Isn’t it Ironic? Only if you ask Alanis Morissette — then again, she’s more likely to cheer you up with a simple You Learn.
Some time passes, the kid munches on milk and toast and honey, and you’re thinking of Bob Dylan’s One More Cup of Coffee (or maybe Johnny Cash’s A Cup Of Coffee because everybody loves a nut, right?) when you’re informed it’s time to go to the park.
Time at the playground is more like a blur.
Everything can happen on the rhythms of Elton John’s Crocodile Rock — at least for the kids, while you keep playing B.o.B.’s Airplanes in your head, wishing all sorts of things right then.
But you brush it off, calling it Seasons In The Sun that you and them will remember someday.
