Dear Stewart,

So, one thing being a mother (for only 8 months, but seriously, time is flying by too fast) has done is, it's removed my sense of embarrassment about certain things.

Well, one thing in particular, and I bet you can guess what it is:

I am no longer afraid to sing in front of Patrick.

Yeah, I know: shocking, right? One time, a long time ago, we were on a long car ride, and I just happened to be singing along with Sting, who was on the radio (as opposed to, say, in the back seat). I think the song was "Every Breath You Take." I'm not the world's greatest singer (though I believe I possess an innate musicality that makes up for my lack of skill and/or vocal training), and Sting is hard to sing with for those of us with... limited range. But we were somewhere on the road, and howling along with ol' Sting-o was fun for me, and, I thought, fun for him (Patrick) too. 

Little did I know that my attempts (at harmonizing? Remembering all the right words? Hitting all the notes?) were annoying him, until... he told me.

Knowing Patrick, he probably told me that his ears were bleeding (not literally!) in a polite way (because my man is nothing if not conscientious), but knowing me, I probably took more offense than was actually necessary. Anyway, that short episode of marital discord (see what I did there?) meant that for years, my singing out loud was limited when he was around. I stuck to solos in the shower but no more belting it out while vacuuming or washing the dishes (which I did quite happily when I lived at home with my parents. Have I never mentioned that my mom is hard-of-hearing?) if he was in the room.

All this was balanced by the kibosh I put on his whistling, which, to be fair, he actually does quite well. I just don't like the sound of whistling.

Anyway, when our son was about 5 months old, I discovered (while alone with him) that my version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was quite successful at calming him down if he happened to start crying in the car. I'm not sure what made me sing that particular song to him, maybe it was on the radio, but boy, launching into the first words ("Mama! Just killed a man!") made him sit up and listen. He also stopped crying, which was a good thing.

Then one day Patrick and I were driving around our neighborhood, checking out the work of a company we wanted to hire to paint our house. It was getting late, and JP had been fed, but we were sort of rushing about to beat the sunset, and so may have neglected to check his diaper before we left. May have: newborns cry for lots of reasons, not all of them so obvious.

Anyway, I was sitting in the backseat with him (JP, not Sting!), and he started getting sniffly and cranky. And I decided to break my silence, in a big way.

I said to Patrick, who was driving, "Watch this!"

Jules cried.

"Mama!" I said. "Just killed a man..."

And suddenly... the only sound in our car was me, singing the piano parts and the guitar solos and the drum effects (I love that faded out gong or whatever it is at the end), and all the words I remembered/successfully made up. JP watched me, opening my mouth as wide as possible, taking lots of big breaths, and he got very, very quiet. Patrick did too, up there in the front seat, not so high and mighty now about any pitchiness on my part, now (actually, I'm quite impressed with my falsetto, which isn't great, but isn't as bad as you might think it would be).

Since then, I sing all the time to the baby (he really loves my version of La Bamba) and sometimes Patrick even joins in. It's a wonderful thing, to have our voices join together for the entertainment of a tiny little baby. Sometimes he babbles along, sometimes he stares at us, sometimes he keeps on trying to pull my glasses off. Either way, it's so much fun to be silly and to let it rip.

Love you,
Irene