For a while now, my little girl has been singing some ditty that goes like this:

“What do you do with the serving pirates? Make them happy!”

I figured it was just random creative weirdness, and there’s still a good chance it is, though I was searching, just out of curiosity (in case this was some odd song she picked up at daycare) and found a song from the Backyardigans cartoon that is called “What Do You Do With a Scurvy Pirate?”

I know they don’t often watch TV at the daycare, and Little Girl Blue has been slow to warm to the Backyardigans (she’s been singing that line I noted above for months but is only in the past week or so willing to sit down and watch the show)…so I’m suspecting that if she did pick it up at daycare, it was from some CD of Backyardigans songs or a general collection of top songs from Nickelodeon-produced cartoon shows.

But none of that is really my point; just me being long-winded and slow to get to my topic (and this was supposed to be a short, quick post in case I can’t break away from work-related stuff later to post 😳 so I guess I’ve already failed there…)

My point is that kids are funny that way. They make up stuff that we don’t quite understand but which makes perfect sense to them. Or they hear something and get it entirely wrong.

We, as parents, need to listen and try to hear them. Or at least appreciate the child’s unique frame of mind.

By the same token, we need to listen to that internal voice. For my brothers and sisters in Christ, that would be the Holy Spirit. It may not speak in words, but you know it speaks to you on some level and you know that you’re ignoring it regularly. I can’t be the only one. And for those of you who aren’t Christian, well, that voice inside would be your conscience. Conscience isn’t quite as potent as the Holy Spirit, but it’s a good start.

We need to listen to that voice inside more often (providing it isn’t telling us to kill our family in the middle of the night or something, in which case you need counseling and medication for a really bad case of schizophrenia probably). We shouldn’t just disregard it as background noise.

Because, just like with Little Girl Blue’s ditty, it might just very well have a real and valid meaning that we just aren’t cluing into, because it’s so much easier to just ignore the voice and move on.

For those of you who are interested, these are apparently the lyrics to the Backyardigans song “What Do You Do With a Scurvy Pirate?” I have no idea how the tune goes, as I haven’t seen this particular episode yet.

What do you do with a scurvy pirate?
raid their ship and then hot-wire it
what do you do with a scurvy pirate?
make him walk the plank!
What do you do with a scurvy pirate?
Load the cannon up and fire it
what do you do with a scurvy pirate?
make ’em walk the plank!
We’ll raid their scurvy pirate ship
and make ’em walk the plank
we’ll grab up all their treasure
and put it in the bank
what do you do with a scurvy pirate?
take their treasure if you desire it
what do you do with a scurvy pirate?
make ’em walk the plank!