Ain't What She Used to Be

Long after Son emerged from the bath he shared with "Sissy," Dear Daughter continued to dive and float and roll about in the water. She's always been enamored with bath time and would probably be happy there all day long if allowed. Tonight I did my typical muti-tasking trick of cleaning the bathroom as she continued to play in her bath water. As I scrubbed the long double master bath vanity and mirror (Daughter still prefers my Jacuzzi over the somewhat plain bathtub in her own bathroom), she sang a little song that went like this, "One gray year, I ain't like I usedta be, ain't like I useta be." I heard it in the background, but I wasn't really paying too much attention at first. After about five rounds, I tuned in enough to sort of hear what she was singing, and I asked her to clarify her lyrics. She replied, "It's that song that you sing all the time, Mommy." I was puzzled and couldn't figure out what song I was singing with these lyrics, and yet the tune was hauntingly familiar.

Several moments later I was onto other thoughts and was busy putting away freshly washed clothing while Daughter continued to swim in the bath tub. I yawned and thought about how I never feel like I get enough sleep anymore while I absentmindedly began humming and singing. I suddenly realized that same tune that Daughter was singing a few minutes earlier was coming out of my own mouth, except with the correct lyrics, "The old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be..." I laughed good and hard out loud when I realized what Daughter was singing as I eyed the gray and silver-ish roots in my hair in the large bathroom mirror and sighed a little. . I actually liked her version better. Either way, the tune is totally fitting.

I don't know why this tune came to me a couple months ago, but it did. And it stuck. And every so often I catch myself singing it to myself as I go about my business at home with the wee ones...usually when I'm in the middle of several loads of laundry, a sink full of dishes, cleaning up something one of the wee ones spilled on the floor, and in the middle of it all Son states, "Poopy!" and Daughter is having a meltdown because she doesn't know where Taggie Book is and my cell phone is ringing with an important business call. I'm tired a lot, and I guess that's why my subconscious dug this little ditty from out of the depths of my past and applied it aptly to my present circumstances.