Just One More Bedtime Song . . .

OK, parents, it’s your turn to travel back in time and become two years old again. You’re in your pajamas, trying every trick in the book to keep your mom in your room.

“Sing me a bedtime song,” you said.

“I just sang you one,” said your mom.

“Sing it again!”

And so she does . . .

What song did she sing? In your memory what was the song you remember the best from your early childhood? “Twinkle, Twinkle”? “Rock-A-Bye-Baby”? Something from Sesame Street? Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”?

My early song memory was called “My Curly Headed Baby,” a popular song based on an African-American lullaby. The part I liked best was: “Do you want the stars to play with, and the moon to run away with?” I liked the impractical but very appealing thought of running away with the moon.

Think about what bedtime songs you remember from your childhood and see if you still can sing the words---scientists say that we never really forget those early musical memories. Donald A Hodges, director of the Music Research Institute at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro states, “Nothing activates as many areas of the brain as music.”

So try to pull those musical brain-building lullabies for babies out, and please write and let me know what songs you remember. And don’t forget to share them with your own babies too. They’ll never forget them either.

Listen to "Starlight Starbright":