I love singing to little man.  Most of the time, he loves it, too.  However, recently, my choice of songs seem to have been hit and miss…

A couple weeks ago, I was singing an old LDS children’s song, “I Hope They Call Me On a Mission.”  I don’t know if it’s sung as much as when I was in primary (the LDS children’s Sunday School), but it’s an old favorite of mine.  For those not familiar, the lyrics to the first verse are:

I hope they call me on a mission
When I have grown a foot or two.
By then, I hope I will be ready
To teach and preach and work like missionaries do.

As I was nursing little man, I was looking through the LDS children’s song book, found this song, and started singing.  Suddenly, little man stopped nursing, looked at me, and starting pouting!  I chuckled, stopped singing, and he went back to nursing.  I started singing again, and, again, he stopped, looked at me, and got tears in his eyes!  I couldn’t believe it – he’d NEVER reacted like that to a song!  I called for Rich to come watch, because that’s what any parent would do…laugh at their child crying when a particular song is sung…  Little man had gone back to nursing while I wasn’t singing.  I explained to Rich what was going on, and tried singing the song one more time.  Sure enough — little man stopped nursing, looked at me, pouted, and started crying!

The curious part of me tried it again a few days later, just to see if he’d still react the same way — he didn’t.  I figure he warmed up to the idea of a mission later in life…

Another time, I was playing Frank Sinatra tunes on the piano and singing along…and he got fussy!  He’s become fussy before when I was playing — if I’m sight-reading and stumbling through a song a bit, he occasionally gets a little fussy until I get to a different song that goes a bit smoother.  But the Sinatra reaction was a bit surprising.  I switched to a little Nat King Cole, and he was happy!  He’s listened to Sinatra with daddy before, but I guess he just wasn’t in the mood for it that particular day!

Then last night, as I was rocking little man to sleep, I was humming various songs – LDS children’s songs and some LDS hymns.  I decided to actually sing some of the words to the songs, and little man stopped nursing, pouted, and got teary again!  I went back to humming, and he was content.  Of course, I was curious again what the trigger for the tears was…turns out it was the words – to any song!  As long as I hummed a tune, he was fine, but the moment I started singing the words to whatever I’d been humming, he started getting teary-eyed!  So he got hummed to instead of sung to…after I laughed at his pickiness, of course!