For Oliver’s first birthday, I put together a 15-minute video. It’s too long for YouTube, plus I used a lot of songs that I wouldn’t be allowed to post. The video features “B-roll” footage and photos from March 6, 2008, to March 5, 2009. Coming up with great photos and video was easy. Coming up with good songs to include? Very difficult.

I had to do a ton of research to find just the perfect songs. While I can’t post the video here (but would be happy to show it to people in private), I’ll post the songs that I used so as to hopefully help out some other ambitious parent.

Here’s the list:
1.) “Memo to My Son” by Randy Newman. You know this guy. He’s the voice for a lot of Disney tracks (“You Got a Friend in Me,” for example). This song is great, with lines like, “I know you don’t think much of me, But someday you’ll understand, Wait’ll you learn how to talk baby, I’ll show you how smart I am.” Plus, it starts with a nice, banging piano, which was perfect for the first clip I used.

2.) “My Darling” by Wilco. One of my favorite bands, one of the sweetest songs. I believe this Beatles-esque tune was written Jeff Tweedy’s son. Between the music (soft piano, melodic tune), lyrics (lines like “Because we made you, My darlin, With love in each of our hearts, We were a family, My darlin’ right from the start”) and the fact that this is an awesome band made this song an easy choice.

3.) “Little Sack of Sugar” by Woodie Guthrie. For this segment of my video, I inserted some goofy pictures for laughs. This was a great selection. It’s a cute, fun little song by an American legend. What a classic sound.

4.) “Godspeed (Sweet Dreams)” by the Dixie Chicks. This was a tough song for me to include, because I’m not a country music fan by any means. However, it’s a pleasant little tune with lyrics that matched up well with the images I inserted of our boy sleeping in various places (in his cradle, in his crib, on a shoulder, on my chest, etc.). Plus it fit the hole vacated by the deletion of a Loudin Wainwright III (Rufus’ dad, for my younger readers) song that my wife didn’t care for.

5.) “Who’s My Pretty Baby” by Elizabeth Mitchell. When Oliver cries in the car or just plain-old needs to be settled down, we pop in a CD (or mp3) by his favorite musician, Elizabeth Mitchell. We’ve listened to tons of kiddie music, and she’s more than tolerable. I find myself humming her tunes all the time. This is an update of a song that I believe was either first sung by or made popular by Woodie Guthrie. Peppy and upbeat and just a lot of fun.

6.) “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” by John Lennon. Written about Lennon’s son, this is a real classic that fit in nicely with the other songs I selected. And who can forget the chorus of “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful … beautiful boy?”

7.) “My Boy” by Neil Young. I only had time for about the first 30 seconds of this track, but it worked out great. You see, this song was written about Young’s child when the boy was a little older (the song mentions school being out). But the first two sections are ambiguous enough to work. Here’s a sample line: “Why are you growin’ up so fast, my boy? Oh, you’d better take your time.”

Anyway, I hope this helps somebody out there in cyberspace. I could have used a resource like this when putting our son’s video together. I spent hours and hours listening to songs and dissecting lyrics.

Let me know what you think. Do you like my selections? Any other songs that you can think of that would have been nice for this project?

First off, let me say the obvious. Well, this should be obvious to anybody I’ve been around for the past week. I’ve been a real crankypants, angry and frustrated with just about everything. If it’s not obvious to you, it will be after reading this post. That’s for sure. Anyway, last week, the only thing I was really looking forward to was taking Oliver to his first St. Louis Blues game at Scottrade Center. The Blues were playing the hated Detroit Red Wings, and the game was starting at 1 p.m. Perfect for our little guy.

Sarah and I headed out around noon and got downtown just in time to make it to the rink. However, there was a problem: The stinking, f’ing St. Patrick’s Day parade!!!! We got stuck in traffic for about 45 minutes downtown, just trying to park our car. Every drunk guy with green body paint and a little plastic derby on his melon just got my blood boiling. Every parking lot was full. Every road was bottlenecked. We finally parked the car and made it into the building with about five minutes left in the first period.

We spent the end of the first period watching the game from a side rail. Oliver enjoyed watching all the lights and looking at all the people. We then went to our seats. There, Oliver enjoyed clinging to his momma the entire time. Well, at least between eating Cheerios and staring at the woman seated to our right.



Right before the second period ended, we headed out to the family restroom. Have you used one of these things at the Scottrade Center before? Did you even know about them? Well, here’s a little interesting tidbit for you: Grown men like to poop in these bathrooms. They wait there, then go in and have a nice quiet bathroom to themselves. We stood in line behind some scuzzy old guy for a few minutes before some duece-dropper exited in shame. The scuzzy old guy in front of us must have decided to clinch it a bit longer, or he felt guilty for waiting for the family restroom, and he let us cut in front. Inside, we did the usual. … changed Oliver’s diaper, got him dressed. Man, did it stink in there!!! So gross. Scuzzy man was still waiting, along with two other guys that could have been his brothers.

Next, we headed over to the food court area where we shared a soda and pretzel. Oliver was really liking this snack time. There was food and lots to look at.



Finally, we headed back to our seats to watch the rest of the game. The Blues had their butts handed to them, though the place was really, really loud. Despite that, Oliver took a bottle and fell sound asleep. He slept through the end of the game and almost all the way to the car. I had to carry him, and my back was really hurting. The boy does weigh a ton.



An hour later, after navigating around St. Louis and St. Louis County due to St. Patrick’s Day parade street closures and Highway 40 being closed, we made it home. I couldn’t have been happier (OK, I was still cranky, so sue me).

All in all, it was pretty stressful. Not like I imagined. However, I did get a rush being at the game with the boy. I can’t wait to take him again when he’s a little older. It’s going to be so much fun.