Today I would like to introduce you to a brand new mummy blogger!

Baked Potato Mummy will be better known to some of you as my friend Lucy.

Today I am honoured to host her very first blog post before her own blog, Baked Potato Mummy, goes live.

Lucy has kindly blogged today to help raise awareness of The Lullaby Trust.

Now, despite what my Mum will tell you, I don’t have a good singing voice. But my little boy doesn’t know that. In fact, he probably thinks everybody else is a pretty rubbish singer and that the fluffed notes and unexpected key changes are all signs of true musical genius.

I’ve sung to him ever since I first felt him kicking as an unborn baby. I remember sitting at my desk, when I should have been working, just surfing the net for lullabies. Singing them to my wriggly tummy, seeing which ones seemed to sooth him. Singing our favourites over and over, committing them to memory;

“Sleepyhead, close your eyes,
Mother’s right here beside you.
I’ll protect you from harm,
You will wake in my arms.”

I remember being away from home on business – pregnant, homesick and emotional. I spent half an hour under the warm water of the shower in my hotel room, singing and rocking us both back to a state of calm;

“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,
Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird.”

I found loads of lovely lullabies, but the one that I settled on once Potato was born was the Skye Boat Song. Not your traditional lullaby, and certainly not a cheerful story. But I love the tune, the lyrics and the history. It also calls to my Scottish heritage. Hopefully, one day we’ll take Potato to Scotland, we’ll cross to Skye and we’ll sing the song together.

“Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward! the sailors cry;
Carry the lad that’s born to be King,
Over the sea to Skye”

If Potato is struggling to settle, I bring out the big guns and sing Puff the Magic Dragon. A song full of strong childhood memories, which I love sharing with my little boy. My parents had a recording, and I can still remember the first time I really listened to the words and just how sad it made me. Mum bought Potato a picture book version this Christmas, which tries to soften the ending by showing a new little girl coming to Honalee. But it’s the words that always stay with me;

“A dragon lives forever, but not so little girls and boys.
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more,
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.”

During the week after Jennie’s loss of Baby Tilda, I found I just couldn’t sing it.

I’ve sung Potato to sleep almost every night since he was born. It’s become such an important part of our bedtime that I wonder if I’ll still be doing it when he’s a teenager! I’m already dreading the night he asks for a story instead.
I love reading to him, but I will miss our lullabies.

For the length of a song or two, only we two exist. As I sing, his chubby fingers stroke and squeeze my face and neck. It’s a lullaby for me as much for him, helping to sooth the stresses of the day. I lose myself in his deep dark eyes, which shine with love as they close to sleep. The power of the love in those eyes can be so overwhelming, I sometimes find myself singing through tears. Happy tears, full of love for our miracle that is our baby boy.