Through no fault of my own, my two-year-old son Alexander decided early to reinforce gender stereotypes by loving sports of all kinds. For a while there, he demanded the same lullaby every single night before he’d go to sleep.
“Baseball song!”
I don’t know where he picked up “Take Me out to the Ballgame” — strikes me as a kind of outdated tune — but he adores it. The kid learned how to count from, “One! Two! Three strikes you’re out!”
One night Trish was in there, singing him to sleep, and after she finished “Take Me out to the Ballgame,” Alexander wailed,
“Again!”
Trish said, “No. I already sang the baseball song.”
“Soccer song?”
Trish laughed and said, “There is no soccer song.” She kissed him goodnight and came out to tag me in, so I went in, gave the kid a hug, and told him to sleep well.
He piped up again, all pathetic,
“Soccer song?”
and how could I say no to that? So I made one up for him:
Soccer ball, soccer ball,
They don’t score any points at all!
Soccer ball, soccer ball,
It’s just a game about running!
Needless to say, he loved it! New favorite. And you thought I could only write books. Hah!