Travels with my grandson

Coming home from kindergarten, two small boys and one howling 10-week-old are squeezed into the back seat of the car. Mummy is driving; Granny Lorna is riding shot-gun which is probably a bad metaphor in the light of subsequent events:

Howling baby’s brother: I just think she doesn’t like to be attached to her car seat.
His friend: She’s really loud.
Granny:  Maybe we should sing to her.

Two boys nod heads and wait.

Granny:  Rock a bye baby in the tree top,
When the wind blows, the baby will rock. [so far so good|
When the bough breaks, the baby will fall
And down will come baby, bough, cradle and all.

I smile; the two boys aren’t smiling.  In fact, they have rather stunned, if not horrified, expressions on their face.  I realize too late that, unlike an infant, they are actually paying attention to the words.

Granny: Yes, well, maybe that’s not the best one to sing. Let’s try this:

Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur
Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr purr purr.

Mummy: Where did you hear that?
Granny: Penny sings it when she tries to comfort Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. [I forget the boys’ teacher also uses it to calm the class.]
Mummy (trying to execute a left-hand turn on a crowded street): Oh.

The baby is  still howling.  But the two boys are in some kind of zen state and are blissfully stroking the backs of their hands. 

I decide that seems like a good idea too; you learn lots of useful things in kindergarten.