Ezie’s Lullaby

Me trying to get my kid sleep:

What is wrong with this child!? Why won’t he go to sleep? Is this some sort of punishment for something I did in the past!? I can’t take it anymore! I am about ready to quit. That’s it. GO TO BED NOWWWWW!

Me when I check in an hour later to find the child sound asleep in bed:

Just look at how peaceful he is. Oh. Was there ever a more precious angelic being to ever walk the earth? His hair is so soft and those beautiful poochie woochie lips. I could stare at this baby forever. I love being a mom.

My kids have never gone to bed easily, so bedtime can get intense. Although, right now I’ve got it pretty easy because my older two go to bed on their own for the most part, and the baby still sleeps a lot anyway. That just leaves Ezie. My 35 pound ball of energy. He will not go to sleep unless I lay down with him and sometimes he still fights it even when I snuggle up on the lower mattress of the boy’s bunk bed.

About a week ago I had an idea to help him relax. I spontaneously made up a lullaby and so far it’s stuck.

The concept stemmed from an old record that I used to go to sleep to you as a kid. Yes, you read that right it was a record and no, I was not born in the 1950s. We just happened to have a record player and one of the records was called The Sleepy Locust.

The story starts out really upbeat. It’s about a farmer building a shed and filling the shed with corn. There is a banjo playing and sound affects of hammering. It conjures up a busy scene with a bright blue sky and a red barn. You envision the farmer locking all of his harvest in the barn to be stored up for the winter.

Then the sun goes down and you hear a swarm of locust on the hunt for food. At first the locust can’t get into the barn because it’s sealed up tight. Then one locust finds a tiny hole just big enough for one single locust to get one grain of corn.

At this point any child listening is intrigued. Then another locust goes in grabs a grain of corn and comes out. Then another locust goes in. Grabs a grain of corn and comes out. You hear this line “Then another locust went in got a grain of corn and went out.” Over and over and the narrator’s voice gradually gets slower and softer with bigger pauses in-between. Add to that the hum of the locust in background you would be lucky to last 5 minutes into the story. It was like audible sleepy dust.

For my lullaby I thought about how the kids are always ready to doze off after a day at the beach. On those nights they sleep hard. So I tried to come up with a story line that would evoke those kinds of feelings. It’s really repetitive to make it even sleepier and if he doesn’t fall asleep the last line naturally leads back into the first. Here is the song.

Watch the waves crash on the shore. In and out.

In and out, in and out, in and out.

Ezie digs in the hot sand. Digs and digs.

Digs and digs, digs and digs, digs and digs.

Ezie climbs onto mommy’s lap. Yawns and yawns.

Yawns and yawns, yawns and yawns, yawns and yawns.

Daddy takes Ezie to the car. The day is done.

The day is done, the day is done, the day is done.

Daddy drives with the headlights on. Drives and Drives.

Drives and drives, drives, and drives, drives and drives.

Ezie drifts off to sleep that night. Sleeps and sleeps.

Sleeps and sleeps, sleeps and sleeps, sleeps and sleeps.