Kumbayah

Lullabies: A Songbook was the first book Charlie liked.

I have written more than a few times about Goodnight Moon as the favorite book of Charlie’s younger days. A couple times last week he requested “book” and the old story of the great green room and the cow jumping over the moon was what he meant. Charlie memorized several pages of Goodnight Moon and, for some years, him turning the pages while repeating the phrases he knew—about the red balloon, and the three little bears, and the quiet old lady whispering hush, and the mush—was the only time he was “reading,” until he learned to read a number of words by sight in the past year (he also uses the Edmark curriculum at school).

After Charlie and I got home from his piano lesson today, we were waiting around for Jim to return from a noontime run in the neighborhood. For a time, Charlie ran back and forth into the driveway down the ramp in the garage; for a time, he sat in the backseat of the green car, with the door shut. The temperature was summer-like for May and I coaxed him back inside and read a book and a half to him. (The second book was The Hungry Caterpillar and Charlie likes to tap the holes in the pages when the caterpillar is eating the strawberries, plums, pears, etc..) Jim came back and the books were put away.

Later on in the afternoon, I heard some rhythmic throat-sliding sort of noises and found Charlie leaning over Lullabies: A Songbook open to “Kumbayah.” The book had been put away and had somehow reappeared. When Charlie was a baby and through his toddler years and, really, until he got too big to sit on my lap without sliding off when he or I moved, we spent long sessions at the piano together. Charlie found the song he wanted based on the painting on the same page, and I played and sang. The book’s pictures were all photographs of paintings or sculptures of mothers and children from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the book a baby shower gift from my sister. Charlie’s song preferences were sui generis (or rather, sui Caroli): “Can Ye Sew Cushions, a lullaby by Mozart, and “Kumbayah.”

This afternoon, Charlie gave me a quick look when I found him leaning over the two pages with “Kumbayah” and told me “Mom stairs,” which translates into “go away, Mom.” I did, and left him to read and to sing his song.