Singing to Clara

     Simon and I sang to Clara while she was in the womb, and pretty much every night of her infancy.  For a while, we sang a series of songs we followed in strict order: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "Baaa-Baaa Black Sheep," "ABC's," "Row Your Boat," "I've Been Workin' on the Railroad," and "Home on the Range." She would listen intently while breastfeeding or sucking on her bottle.  Later, she would sit up and smile a little pink smile.
     Neither Simon nor I have even a moderately good singing voice.  When we first started, we used to get into arguments about who was singing which song correctly.  We got better and tried to get fancy.  We sang "Row Your Boat," in a round, but I had to plug my ears and hunch over with my eyes squeezed shut to not get distracted by Simon's verse.
    Coming from an extended family that sings in four-part harmony, I really wanted to harmonize.  I discovered, if I stayed I the same note, it would eventually harmonize somewhere in the song.  Simon wanted to know why I was singing like a Gregorian chant.
     One night, Simon said we should try singing something else.  I felt peeved at first, because I was getting really good at the nursery songs.  Then I imagined this universe of new material opening up before my eyes.  It was like that song in Aladdin, "A Whole New World," which I have tried to sing on occasion, usually when I enter a big bookstore or an especially ornate restaurant bathroom.
    Simon started to sing, "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay."  Really?! I said.  That song is hard.  We moved on to Abbey Road.  I spent most of my histrionic junior high-school years listening to that album, therefore I knew the lyrics to each song perfectly.  The tune was another story.