Rock-a-Bye

Today Owen was a little fussy all afternoon.  He is generally a very good baby, but today, I think, he just didn't get the regular amount of sleep in his naps for one reason or another. 

I tried everything to get him to stop whining (he wasn't full on crying....just a constant tired type of whining).  I tried all the usual things, sit him on my lap and pat his back, stand up and walk with him on my chest, walk with him while cradling him....everything.

I don't know how I thought of it...because I hadn't used this before....but I started to sing to him, and it worked!  (Even my voice.....which ain't great.)

The funny thing is that I started to sing "Rock-a-Bye Baby".....and I couldn't remember the words.  I must've sang that song a few thousand times in my life, but for the life of me I kept messing up the lyrics.  (After about the 15th time - because Owen would start whining again if I stopped singing - I got the correct lyrics.)

I decided to look up the song on Wikipedia to find out if there was any stories on why the lyrics to that song are so terrible.  (Have you ever thought about what you are actually singing to a baby when you sing that song?)

One theory is that the song was written by an English immigrant who witnessed the Native American women rocking their babies in birch bark cradles which were suspended from tree branches.

Another theory is that it is about Betty Kenny and her husband (Luke) who had 8 kids and lived in a large tree where a hollowed-out bough served as their cradle.

The last theory is so crazy I have to copy and paste it straight from Wikipedia:

Yet another theory has it that the lyrics, like the tune "Lilliburlero" it is sung to, refer to events immediately preceding the Glorious Revolution. The baby is supposed to be the son of James VII and II, who was widely believed to be someone else's child smuggled into the birthing room in order to provide a Roman Catholic heir for James. The "wind" may be that Protestant "wind" or force "blowing" or coming from the Netherlands bringing James' nephew and son-in-law William of Orange, who would eventually depose King James II in the revolution (the same "Protestant Wind" that had saved England from the Spanish Armada a century earlier). The "cradle" is the royal House of Stuart.^[4] The earliest recorded version of the words in print appeared with a footnote, "This may serve as a warning to the Proud and Ambitious, who climb so high that they generally fall at last",^[5] which may be read as supporting a satirical meaning. It would help to substantiate the suggestion of a specific political application for the words however if they and the 'Lilliburlero' tune could be shown to have been always associated.

Whatever the song means...I have come to 2 conclusions:

1)  They lyrics will always be a little "deranged" in my mind.
2)  That song works like a charm