Eclectic lullabyes

"He has the most eclectic taste in bedtime music," my wife just said. My eight-year-old son is drifting off to sleep to cries of "sit down, John!" from the original Broadway cast album of "1776". For the previous couple of weeks, it was the best of the Chieftains, which Rocky and Rainbow, the hermit crabs, seemed to enjoy. The beating of the bodhrán gets their claws a-clicking. A performance album by the Texas Boy Singers was a favorite for a while. Over the years he's cycled through several albums by Riders in the Sky and Trout Fishing in America, "No!" by They Might Be Giants (also the official soundtrack of last summer's family vacation), and John Rutter's "Three Musical Fables."

My daughter went through a long stretch falling asleep listening to Leonard Bernstein narrating and conducting "Peter and the Wolf" and "Carnival of the Animals." She often goes for more kid-oriented bedtime listening -- there's a CD about Elmo and the orchestra, a collection of Raffi songs performed by country singers, a couple of Wiggles CDs. There's a CD of an orchestra performing Irish tunes, and she asks me to sing "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral" along with the music, which always gets me a little choked up -- my mom used to sing that to me at bedtime, along with "Don't Fence Me In" and "South of the Border."

A long-time favorite CD of both kids -- both have been listening to it since they were babies -- is called "Love A Byes". They still request it from time to time. (It's out of print, sorry to say.)

There's almost always a sung lullabye, too. The boy always wants Mom to sing "Stay Awake," from Disney's "Mary Poppins." Dad is not allowed to substitute. The girl seems to prefer Dad's singing of late, and for a while she wanted songs about dreams, so I would sing "A Kiss to Build a Dream on," or that Everly Brothers tune.

Writing about this is making me a little drowsy....