Best of What's Around

So, Elise was recruited into attending a Cabi (sp?) party a few nights ago which left Sam and I alone to watch the results of the Mississippi primary trickle in, prior to which we went for a walk around the neighborhood and to check the mail.

The parenting gurus who recommend fathers sing to their children have never heard me attempt to carry a tune, else they would swear me off the practice for good for fear I'd permanently scar my son. But he didn't seem to mind as I crooned Do-Re-Mi from 'Sound of Music' about Somerset.

I was okay all the way up until, "Far...a long long way to run..." when I drew a blank. What comes after 'Far'? 'So'? A female pig? (Or is that sow?) I've been encountering this problem quite frequently. I don't know any children's songs. I don't want to speak for my wife, but I don't think Elise does either. I can start a lot of them, but, invariably, they disintegrate into a hackneyed, severly butchered version of the original. Most of the time--Elise is much better at this than I--we end up making up or own.

Like the song that followed Do-Re-Mi...to the tune of Shaggy's 'It Wasn't Me': "Sam made tooties in the bathtub...It wasn't me! Same made tooties in the bedroom...It wasn't me! Sam made tooties in the kitchen...It wasn't me! He made tooties all around me...It wasn't me!"

Finally, I reverted to the only music I do know all the lyrics to...The Dave Matthews Band. First 'Satellite' and then 'The Best of What's Around':

"Hey my friend It seems your eyes are troubled (though Sam's eyes are rarely, if ever, truly troubled)
Care to share your time with me (Dad :)
Would you say you're feeling low, if so, a good idea would be to get it off your mind
See you and me have a better time than most can dream of
We have it better than the best
Whatever tears at us
Whatever holds us down
And if nothing can be done we'll make the best of what's around"

(Then my favorite part of, perhaps, my favorite song)

"Turns out, not where, but who're you with is what really matters, yeah
And hurts not much when you (Elise and Sam) are around"

Ah, truer words were never warbled...Now, if I can just remember this when it's 90 degrees out and my Pegasi feel like the giant sponges they wash SUVs with....or when some golf pro with his polo buttoned up over his adam's apple lets his girlfriend's lhasa apso relieve itself on front 'yard'....