I find myself spending a lot of time right now focussing on small joys, because the big stuff is SO RELENTLESSLY AWFUL.

I’m trying to keep looking at the big stuff properly, because I don’t want to ignore it or be lulled into going numb to it – which I know is all too easy to do. But to combat its effects I find myself searching out pockets of happy and normality, and stock-piling them while I can.

A bit like loo roll.

I am planning stuff, and doing stuff that makes me happy.

And one of the things that is both a catalyst and symptom of happiness for me is singing.

I think in general there has been much less bursting into spontaneous song than I was hoping for in my life.

But luckily, it turned out singing was a weird sort of side-effect of having babies – one of the many I never saw coming.

Small people are in fact a GREAT excuse to catapult yourself into your own personal musical!

I don’t think I realised quite how much I loved to sing it until I was belting out Tony Chestnut, Old MacDonald and The Wheels on the Bus at various baby groups.

What’s more, the Smalls LOVED my voice, especially at bedtime.

This was a new experience for me!

Because my singing is, objectively, absolutely terrible.

I have spent much of my life being begged by people I live with to please, for the love of all that is Holy, STOP. YOU’RE DOING IT AGAIN. I CAN STILL HEAR YOU.

My singing is terrible for several reasons.

These include (but are not limited to) not being able to hold a tune, not caring about this, not having any idea about either notes or keys, a startling inability to harmonise with others, fatal susceptibility to an earworm, and chronic lyric amnesia.

The only song words I can remember are the greatest hits from my parents’ favourite band Dr Hook, Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill album – or the ones I make up myself as part of Mumonthenetheredge: The Musical, now in its tenth tuneless year.

There are MANY of these.

They are all terrible, too.

As an example, everybody in the house (apart from me) has their own theme tune, sometimes several.

We sing a song called ‘Bath Kitty’ at bathtime, because Catonthenetheredge always turns up hoping to be dripped on, as used water filtered off human being is her favourite drink/washing aid. (We have no idea why this is or how it came about, but find it equal parts endearing and gross).

We also sing a song called ‘Kitty, Kitty, Pussy Cat’ at bedtime, to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and we’ve now managed to train her to come and get on the Small Small’s bed and have a cuddle while being serenaded every evening. It goes like this:

Kitty, kitty, pussy cat

How we wonder where you’re at

You’re so pretty, you’re so sweet

From your kitty nose to your little kitty feet

Kitty, kitty, pussy cat

We don’t have to wonder where you’re at.

The hamster, who basks in the name Mr Lewis Tulip (Chewy for short) also has two theme tunes.

Chewy Lewy

Even though you’re pooey

Chewy Lewy

Yeah we love you so!

And to the tune of Abba’s Money, Money Money…

Chewy Lewy Chewy

You’re so pooey

In a hamster’s wheel.

Everyone has their own version of Maybe Baby which goes like this:

Hello baby

Are you a baby?

Yes I’m a baby – I don’t mean maybe!

I’ve been a baby, for XX years

I’m a baby maybe baby maybe baby.

There are also personalised lyrics for the children to Michael Rows the Boat Ashore, Oh Sinner Man, Puff the Magic Dragon, and MORE! (All gleaned from my own, looking back, possibly musically-abusive childhood).

Sometimes I sing when I WANT to be in a good mood.

Or instead of shouting.

I do an awesome line of tooth brushing and getting dressed Opera, and my back and forth tenner and soprano of ‘Put Your Bloody Shoes On’ is, if I say so myself, truly something to behold. Or behear.

But as the Smalls grow, I find there is less and less singing. (And also that they’re starting to tell me to be quiet, too. Sniff).

And somehow I find it is a core part of the sadness of them growing up.

Even worse, I find I am now forgetting the lyrics to these songs, too, as time passes.

So many of our memories, these days, are captured in photographs, or maybe videos. Stylised, shareable, snapshots of our lives – which live mostly on our phones.

But what those don’t really capture is the DETAIL. The detail of ordinary life, routines, their repetition, the everyday family traditions that emerge at different family stages. The stories behind the images. The small stuff that’s not photo-worthy – but somehow bigger and more important, anyway.

The stuff that comes alive again in a smell, in a tune, more than in an image.

When I scroll back to baby photos now, I don’t feel connected to those moments in time – it’s like looking through someone else’s pictures. They are flat. And I can’t quite remember the me I was then, or the they THEY were then, what it was like to hold them when they were so tiny, what the imprint of their bodies on mine felt like – what we were doing or saying to each other. I can’t remember the small/big important bits I promised myself I would keep safe inside me, that would be burned on my soul forever. They’ve slipped away.

My amnesia, it seems, extends far beyond song lyrics. (And passwords).

With Big Small now 10 and Small Small now 7 – with the world going to hell on a handcart – finding ways to record and preserve memories seems somehow more urgent.

I feel like I need to do more to capture the detail, store it up properly so I can one day feel the feelings again – and be properly connected to the past from the future. Properly connected to past mes, and past thems.

For me, I think that has to mean writing more of it down. The small stuff. The silly stuff. A diary of thoughts, feelings and moments that are MORE than a picture. That bring it back more strongly to live over again, when I need to.

So as a start, our next family project is to create a Family Song Book. Something solid to refer to, that is in itself part of creating and triggering memory, and tradition, and HOME.

Something that will be a route to coming back and finding it and each other when we lose it and us – because we will – because as the cliche goes the days are slow but the years are fast.

Something to help us not just remember the small joys but remember to notice them in the first place.

Something to sing along to.

(Even if when at least one of us will still sound like a tortured weasel with laryngitis when doing so).

xxx