I'm sitting in my basement ...

... working on some stuff for my "night job," and I've left the monitor on. The other end of the monitor is in Piper's bedroom. She has not made noise for an hour, since Mommy put her down. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, she begins singing in a clear (and surprisingly in-tune) voice several verses of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm." I'm not sure if she had fallen asleep and woke up to sing this song, or if she's just been lying there thinking about things and decided she needed some music to accompany her thoughts. (The Justin Roberts CD that was playing has long since died out.) The real entertainment comes when she runs out of animals. Not that that should ever slow down a determined late-night "Old MacDonald" singer.

Old MacDonald had a farm, E - I - E - I - O
And on this farm he had a daddy, E - I - E - I - O
With a "Hi, hi" here, A "Hi, hi' there,
Here a "Hi," there a "Hi,"
Everywhere a "Hi, hi"
Old MacDonald had a farm, E - I - E - I - O.

It doesn't stop there: She continues with verses about Mommy, Gammy (Laura's mom), Gammy Jean (my mom), and Penny (Gammy Jean's dachshund). Penny doesn't get a "Hi, hi;" she gets the more apropos "Woof, woof." After a few more minutes of silence, "Rock-A-Bye, Baby" starts up, but I can already hear her starting to fade again. She barely gets out the last line — the one I modified to remove some of the morbidity of that song:

When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall And Daddy will catch you, cradle and all.

One of the greatest rewards of parenting is the knowledge that — for a few years, at least — there is one soul out there who believes you to be omnipotent. I certainly don't want her believing it for long. But it's good for her to feel that now, and hell, it certainly makes me walk an extra foot off the ground.