I know I overthink my children's books way too much, but I just can't help it.

My daughters received some very large and lovely nursery rhyme books a couple months ago; books that have every nursery rhyme you've ever heard of in them, as well as lots you've probably never heard. And some of these more obscure ones? Weird stuff, man.

Like this one:

Bat, bat,
come under my heat,
And I 'll give you a slice of baacon;
And when I bake,
I'll give you a cake
If I am not mistaken.

What in the world? I do not know anyone who would want a bat to come under their hat. Sure, bats are useful and they eat mosquitos and all, and I bear them no ill-will, but under my hat (nesting in my hair, perhaps?) is the last place in the world I would want a bat to be.

And bacon? Why would a bat want bacon? They eat bugs. Or fruit, if it's a fruit bat. What I do I know, maybe some bats do eat bacon. But why do you have bacon under your hat, either? Also, I generally have much better uses for both bacon and cake then giving it to bats. Like feeding it to my husband and children; big bacon and cake fans, all three of them.

So here's another one:

When Jacky's a good boy,
He shall have cakes and custard;
But when he does nothing but cry,
He shall have nothing but mustard.

That one just makes me laugh. Why mustard? Is that the remedy for excessive crying? Because I have some in the fridge. And since we've had this book, I've actually recited this rhyme to Beth a couple times when the whining is getting to me. "Do you want nothing but mustard?" I say in a threatening tone. She says no. She doesn't find it funny, nor an effective threat, either. Maybe next time I need to follow through, and for lunch give her a giant plate of mustard.

I like this one too:

There came an old woman from France
Who taught grown-up children to dance;
But they were so stiff,
She sent them home in a sniff,
This sprightly old woman from France.

How do you send someone home in a sniff? I have heard of someone leaving "in a tiff," but not in a sniff. Does that mean she did it really fast, like in the amount of time it takes a person to sniff?

I never heard this one before, either:

Chook, chook, chook, chook, chook,
Good morning, Mrs. Hen.
How many chickens have you got?
Madam, I've got ten.
Four of them are yellow,
And four of them are brown,
And four of them are speckled red,
The nicest in the town.

Mrs. Hen is real good at math.

Okay, enough analysis of children's rhymes for one day. Maybe next time I'll write about my problem with Piglet in Winnie the Pooh.