I purchased Sally Go Round the Sun edited by Edith Fowke, on my last trip to Toronto. It’s full of fun nursery rhymes and songs for kids. Heritage tracks, poems. A few months ago when my son was having trouble staying asleep, we got into a brief habit of hanging out in the living room in the dark, trying everything to avoid turning on the TV (which is a default activity for everybody in the house when we’re having trouble sleeping). I pulled up the book of rhymes and started randomly singing some of the tunes. I wasn’t familiar with most of them so it was also a sight-reading challenge but since no one knew what these songs were, I could in theory, make up the melodies.

One of the tunes is “Punchinello.” The melody was strange so I repeated it till I got a handle.

Look who is here, Punchinello funny fellow!

My son sleeps pretty regularly again (thank fucking god) but weeks later, I hear him occasionally humming his version of the melody and saying the name Punchinello, perfectly.