Singing to sleep

Ben was just a few minutes less than four hours old when I first held him in my arms. 21 hours after that, I was rocking him in his bedroom at my house, singing him a song. I have sung to him almost every night of his life since then, except for two weekends when I have been away from him. He'll be three in January.

Tonight, he was cheerful after his bath and reading our two books. He seemed to want to put himself to sleep. “G’night, Mommy, kiss,” he said.

I gave him the requested kiss and said, “Do you know how much I love you?”

He answered with my phrase, “A million trillion,” and smiled his broad smile.

I kissed him again and said, “I’ll be in the kitchen, doing dishes. Good night my sweet,” and left him in his room.

A moment later I heard his voice. I thought he was calling me. I walked to the foot of our short stairs, and heard:

“ Eee I, ee I oh, a duck duck here, a duck duck there, ee I ee I oh.”

A moment later, all was quiet.

Ben has learned to sing himself to sleep.