Here’s What I Sing to My Grands

by Lucinda Secrest McDowell

Happy and Exhausted! Have you ever felt that way? You’re beyond tired, but you wouldn’t trade what you’re doing for anything in the world… 

This month I’m so very grateful to have my actor daughter and her 9-month-old son living with us while she performs in a musical nearby. Because …. I get to be Granny Nanny to Sweet T. Every single day. And most nights during performances.

Happy and Exhausted.  That’s me – GrannyLu. I am treasuring every single moment with this precious child and one of the things I do often with him (as well as his cousins in London) is to SING!

I seem to constantly be singing him words of love and joy and words of life, as I did with my own four children. I’m pretty confident he doesn’t care if I’m off-key. (though, it is true that back home in NYC, all his nannies are Broadway singers, so they set the bar high…)

Do you sing to your children or grandchildren? If not, why not? Perhaps when the time comes to settle them down for naps, you can’t think of anything to sing? 

Here’s my own eclectic list (including music/lyric links) – favorites  I once sang to my own children and now carry on with Darlin’ Girl, Little Prince and Sweet T:

My 10 Favorite Songs to Sing to Children!

by Lucinda Secrest McDowell (in no particular order)

1. “All The Way” – “When your Granny loves you, it’s no good unless she loves you all the way, happy to be near you when you need someone to cheer you, all the way..” (pretend you are Frank Sinatra or Celine Dion.)
2. “I Am Jesus’ Little Lamb” (sung by my husband to our 4 kids and now we are passing it along) Ends with “…loves me every day the same, even calls me by my name!”  Other similar choices which give the all-important message of being LOVED: “Jesus Loves Me” (insert your child’s name in instead of ‘me’) and “Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World”  
3. “You Are My Sunshine”  (it helps if you have a southern twang, which I most certainly do) and “I Love You A Bushel and a Peck”
4. “Goodnight My Someone, Goodnight My Love” great song from “The Music Man” (I insert my grand’s name instead of someone)
5. “Spirit Song” – “O Let the Son of God enfold you with His Spirit and His Love, Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul….” (from my Jesus Movement days…)
6. “Over the Rainbow”  – just because it is a practically perfect song…”if happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow why oh why can’t I?”
7. “Fairest Lord Jesus” – merely one of the scores of hymns I sing pretty much all the time, so will definitely pass along to little ones… “fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight, and all the twinkling starry host; Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer than all the angels heaven can boast.”
8. “Edelweiss” and “My Favorite Things” because if it was good enough for Fraulein Maria in “The Sound of Music” it’s good enough for me.
9. “The Way You Look Tonight” – – “Someday, when I’m awfully low, and the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you…and the way you look tonight.” (especially for those of us who live far away from our grands…)
10. “10,000 Reasons- Bless The Lord”  – One of my few favorite contemporary worship songs. But who can beat these words? “The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning, it’s time to sing Your praise again. Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes…bless the Lord O my soul…”

What are YOU singing these days?

“So sing! The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts. Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord. Don’t stop singing.“       (Hildegarde, 12th century)

under the mercy, Lucinda

“Helping You Choose a Life of Serenity and Strength”

©2018 Lucinda Secrest McDowell        www.EncouragingWords.net

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