Sticking around

I have been sitting on the floor next to Isaac's bed for 30 minutes already, and he is not showing any signs of falling asleep. The floor is hard, the room is dark, and I am getting uncomfortable, frustrated, and tired. I am considering getting up and leaving him to fuss for a while. It is 9:45 p.m.

Isaac is still lying down, at least, but he is also singing loudly and inventively to himself -- or to me, I guess, because when I tried to sing to him, he said "No! Isaac sing to Mama."

He runs through a few fragmented verses of his bedtime favorites -- a song from Gilbert and Sullivan's "H.M.S. Pinafore," Lulu's Back in Town, and Skip to My Lou. It's especially interesting to hear him deal with the Gilbert and Sullivan song, "When I Was a Lad," because he doesn't understand many of the words or any of the content, so he sings it phonetically but also compresses the verses so the song doesn't make sense.

"Skip to My Lou" is not as intellectually challenging. For a while he sings a pretty accurate rendition of the version from a book we've just checked out of the library, then he creates his own variant of the book's plot, and then he does something he has never done before: he sings my version of the song.

For at least a year and a half I've been singing an Isaac-centric version of "Skip to My Lou" right before we sit down to nurse. One of the verses goes like this:

Mama loves Isaac / Dad does too
Mama loves Isaac / Dad does too
Mama loves Isaac / Dad does too
Skip to my Lou, my darling

Tonight Isaac sings it like this:

Mama loves me / So does Dad
Mama and Dad take care of you
Skip to my Lou my darling

Okay, I guess I'll stick around until he falls asleep, after all.
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