The Music of Our Lives

When you stay at home with the kids, your lives are pretty similar.

Like the children, you wake up at the crack of dawn, eat cocoa Lucky Charms with all new magic mirror marshmallow!, play trains, listen to a Sesame Street CD, eat macaroni and cheese...and so forth.

Last week, when I asked Richie what he did at a friend's house, he said, "We played choo choo. We watched trucks. We ate cheese."

And that pretty much sums up my day, too.

The difference between their day and mine is that we have a different soundtrack playing in our heads. Johnny, Richie, and even J.J. constantly hear an action movie theme song. I know this because they often sing it out loud.

For instance, in the library on Sunday, Richie sat next to me in the grown up aisle as I searched for a humor book to read.

My soundtrack was neurotic. "Is this going to be funny?" I fretted. "Well, it might be sort of funny. But not laugh-out-loud funny. When will I have time to read this anyway? The new T.V. season is starting any day now..."

Meanwhile, Richie was staring at a comic book advertisement for superhero action figures and singing, "Da-da-da-DA. Da-da-da-DA," over and over. It was like the song telekinetically propelled the toys on the page into a comic strip of his making. And I'm sure he was the star of the show. Most likely Richie was J'onn J'onz, the Martian Manhunter. He likes to be the more obscure superheros, perhaps because he doesn't know what their personalities are like, so he can just be himself.

Then on Friday, we were making apple pie. Johnny's job was to combine the cinnamon, sugar, flour and apples.

He was the sugar.

"You cannot destroy me, cinnamon," he said, as the sugar transformed into a shade of light brown.

"I will," the cinnamon said in a menacing voice.

It didn't. But the apples almost did. As the sugary mixture clung to the juicy slices, the sugar said, "It's getting to be too much!"

Then Johnny said, in a normal voice, as though I couldn't hear his make believe commentary, "Mom, we don't need any more apples. There's no room in the bowl."

"Okay," I said.

"See," he growled melodramatically. "I will not DIE. Da na na NA."

I take it he was portraying the sugar again. Because the crowded apple bowl really was not a life or death situation.

Meanwhile, my soundtrack sounded more like this: "I don't think that's enough flour to thicken the syrup. But I don't want it to pasty. Ew. That would be disgusting. Yeah, but that's not enough flour. Well, maybe it is. No, it's not."

Johnny's argument was a lot more interesting.

Even J.J. has a soundtrack. When he's sitting in his highchair, waiting for food, he hums, "Mm. Mm. Mm." It sounds kind of like the Jeopardy! tune.

But Richie took the cake yesterday when we were sacking groceries. We had to get home fast, so we were sacking them like crazy. Johnny naturally was singing an action song, "Da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da," as he threw canned goods into the bags.

"Don't smash the bread. Don't smash the hamburger buns," was my chorus.

Richie just looked on nonchalantly and sang, "Corn. Corn. Corn corn corn corn. Corn. Corn. And corn. Corn. Corn and corn and corrrrrrrrrrrrn!"

What would life be like with songs like that playing in the background? You'd still have to do mundane things like grocery shopping. But how could you be annoyed with "Corn and Corn," playing in the background? Yes, need a new soundtrack. From now on, while I'm typing I'm going to sing the action song. I will be the Incredible Typing Woman. Da da da da. Da da da da.