The Twelve Days

Genuine text message this evening from Rock Star to a friend:
“My parents are singing. God help me.”

It was true. And it was baaaad.

Little Squirt, in his sweet naivety, believes his parents to be flawless. Cool. Dare I even say perfect? And quality vocalists, for sure. And we are. (In our wildest imagination.) Our youngest has not yet reached the age when he’s aware of how Lethally Embarrassing we actually are. That enlightenment will come soon enough, bless his heart. He’ll come into that epiphany by age nine, most likely, as did his siblings.

In the meantime, we enjoy his innocence, and defer to his requests to warble. Tonight at the dinner table, he asked us to sing, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” So we indulged him. But, for the life of us, we couldn’t remember the lyrics. Weren’t there Seven Lords A-Sleeping or something? Eight Cows A-Milking? And Geese doing something crass? And what were Days Nine, Ten and Eleven? All we were certain of were the “Five Golden Riiiiings.”

It was beyond pathetic. And Rock Star looked green with misery. Which is part of the beautiful tradition around our dinner table. Aren’t you sorry you missed it?