"carry the lad that's born to be king / over the sea to skye"

[larryhammer]

Four random things:

You know those iconic IKEA Poäng chairs? They now make a child-sized version. It is way cute next to our two full-sized ones.

I generally don't hold much sympathy for Jacobite romanticism, but I have to admit that "Skye Boat Song" is a lovely lullaby.

Cookie Monster is an awesome life coach.

"More" is a very powerful word.

---L.

Subject quote from "Skye Boat Song," Sir Harold Boulton.

Comments

[genarti]

It's funny; I grew up on Jacobite romanticism, despite neither of my parents holding particular political sympathy for any of the groups involved, and despite them being quite aware of the amount of romanticism and political agenda going into lots of those songs. (And art, etc etc etc.) So there are a lot of songs I love deeply, with nostalgia as a factor but not the sum total of my fondness... and yet look at with a very jaundiced eye when it comes to the actual content of what I'm fondly singing. (Some songs romanticizing rather more recent Irish politics that I definitely don't agree with fall into this category, too.)

"Skye Boat Song" does also tickle my fancy, admittedly, when sung with all the verses so it makes a sudden sharp veer from lilting lullabye to BLOOD AND DEATH AND CLAYMORES ON THE BATTLEFIELD. I have a fondness for that kind of juxtaposition. My parents left out those verses when singing it as an actual lullabye for me, though.

[larryhammer]

It's amazing how much violence you can croon to a sleepy baby without realizing it. And how much you alter verses on the fly when you realize what you're doing.

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Chairs!

[larryhammer]

That can be pushed across the house more easily than the grown-up chairs.

(We also got a child-sized table-and-chairs set, but in the burly of Passover cleaning having assembled it yet.)

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Hee.

A daycare friend with child-sized table/chairs invited my daughter to their seder the year that they were 2.5 years old. There were three small persons at their table and a mismatched group of adults at the adjacent adult-sized table. Worked pretty well.

[larryhammer]

TBD will be attending Seder in her high chair, or more likely in my lap a lot of the time. Or wandering around bored. Or heading to bed. We'll see how this works out.

---L.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suspect that if these three hadn't been 2.5 years old already, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well. (The host said that she had abridged the readings considerably that year; no other children were present to be good examples, or not.)

[larryhammer]

It's working out that there'll be no other children -- it looks like the four questions will be read by a 40-odd-year-old.

---L.

[snakypoet]

I grew up on Jacobite romanticism too, even in far away Tasmania. The novels of D.K. Broster in particular. Still love it in a way, even while recognising how historically/politically dodgy it is.

And yes, Skye Boat Song (the few verses I ever heard) is indeed beautiful, no matter its context. I 'm mad for it.

[larryhammer]

We all have our romanticisms, many of them dodgy.

---L.