Just about every book aimed at new parents tells you to sing to your child, and not just after they're born. Olive's auditory system developed a few months ago, and she'll be able to recognize both Christina and me by voice, even immediately after birth. Kids tend to like music; singing is an effective way to get them to sleep. There's some research indicating that if you sing songs to your child at this point, get them familiar with the rhythm and the melody, they'll have an affinity for that song later.

Thing is, neither Christina nor I actually know any lullabies. We've certainly played music for Olive; if we can judge her enthusiasm by her kicks, her favorite band right now is Led Zeppelin. When we try to sing personally to her, though, right now we tend to get only a few measures in before resorting to humming and guesswork. There are a few songs¹ that I'm actually starting to practice singing now, but it turns out that starting to sing when you're out of practice is a hard thing to do.

In the meantime, we've fallen back to speech. I wouldn't say that I talk to her often, but there have been several occasions on which it's seemed appropriate to just start monologuing at Christina's belly. In some respects this is all performative: Olive might remember my voice, but she certainly won't remember anything I actually tell her now. Christina, on the other hand, seems to really enjoy the experience, and to be honest, I do too. It's bonding for us as parents, even if Olive can't really participate.

The monologuing at the belly seems to be my thing, for now at least. Christina has a hard time looking down and addressing her belly out loud; it's just a bit too silly-feeling for her. Still, this isn't to say that it doesn't happen. On Friday, we got confirmation that Olive had rotated into the head-down position; Christina and I were sitting together with our hands on the belly, feeling her squirm. I joked that it would be in character for a descendant of mine to see if they could keep the motion going, do a complete somersault in there. Out came Christina's Mom Voice: "Don't you dare try that, and don't listen to your dad when he's giving you bad ideas!" It was spontaneous, and authentic, and awesome.

There's some context to this next anecdote about her squirming. In the early days of the pregnancy, reading /r/predaddit, I came across someone else's story of playing with their child, through the belly, while the mother slept. When I shared that story with Christina, she told me that it would never happen: she's too light a sleeper; she's wake immediately. Still, we both agreed that it was cute.

Well, it happened last night. I was up late with insomnia, waiting impatiently to finally fall asleep. While waiting, I turned to cuddle with Christina, and put my hand on her belly. Immediately, Olive went absolutely crazy: she was wiggling, and sliding some pressure point back and forth under my hand, and just generally kicking like she was trying to emulate the Alien chestburster. Just putting a tiny bit of pressure with my fingertips was enough to cause an emphatic reaction; Olive wanted to play, and I wanted to play along. Through all of it, Christina slept. It lasted maybe ten minutes or so, but it put a huge grin on my face. I envy Christina sometimes, that she very often feels Olive on occasions that I miss. This was our chance to reverse the pattern, and I relished it.

There are two months left until we expect to actually meet her. I can't wait.