Last night I drove Zach (son) around in the car for roughly two hours after my work day ended. Since he can’t leave the house and risk COVID exposure I started doing this back in March just to give him a change of scenery.
Zach spends his days home, but he knows that come 5:30pm ish (known in some circles as “Happy Hour” but not mine) I will take him out, drive around on the highway and look for trucks, motorcycles, holiday lights…whatever we can find.
Since Zach is not able to make small talk or even carry on much of a conversation, we developed a practice of “singing” as a way to connect. When we go out for our evening drives, we rarely do anything but sing.
The songs may vary, but the top hits are “Happy Birthday (To: insert the name of any person or thing),” ”Frosty the Snowman” and ”I’ve (or insert name) Been Working on the Railroad.“ After working all day I am not always as enthusiastic about these concerts as Zach is, but I know it makes his day and usually mine too.
Last evening while singing, I started to do some “back of the napkin” math. One hour of singing (often more), multiplied by four days a week (often more), multiplied by 36 weeks = 34,560 rounds of Happy Birthday since COVID began.
There are a lot of metrics to follow during this pandemic. And a lot of adjustments to our routines. But I wonder if anyone else can boast 34,560 rounds of “Happy Birthday” to date?! If so – I can relate.
#Grateful-for-singing