It was well timed by the fates that the gangsta rapper's meteoric single shot to the top of the charts along with Grace's entry into the world. Jeff "illegally" downloaded the song online, burned it to a CD and played it nonstop during the first few weeks of Grace's life outside the womb. It became a sort of inappropriate family lullaby, and we sang it to Grace at three in the morning when we all huddled in our double bed for bleary, hallucinogenic night feedings.

"Yo, Shorty, it's your birthday. We're gonna party like its your birthday. Gonna sip Bacardi like it's your birthday," Jeff would gently bleat as he paced the floor and patted a confused and crying newborn, who, thank God, was too little to have acquired the language capacity to be corrupted by the rest of the lyrics.

In a classic white fratboy appropriation of ghetto rap, Jeff became obsessed with the song. It popped up every morning as we puttered around the kitchen, still recovering from our fitful sleepless night. He kept the download on his laptop where he pushed replay again and again as he worked his latest statistical analysis or caught up on emails from disgruntled students who were insensitive to paternity leave.

When we ventured out for family forays, for what seemed at the time to be essential baby supplies, up to the Citikids store on Clement Street or down to San Bruno to Lullaby Lane, 50 Cent blared from the speakers, the noise and car movement lulling Grace to sleep.

I stared from the passenger window, watching the hills of San Francisco weave in and out of the fog, often unaware that I was chanting verses like, "I'm into having sex; I'm not into making love; So come give me a hug." Once I snapped out of my reverie, I would quickly scan the sidewalks to make sure no one I knew had seen me, overreacting to the fact that I was merely embarrassed by our choice of music.

I fluctuated between worry that rap music was too harsh for innocent baby ears and pride at the fact that my little one was already so multicultural. As a feminist, I don't openly admit to enjoying music that derides women as playthings for a singer's evening out in a bar, and I worried what my progressive mommy friends would think. In the end, exhaustion won the battle and I stopped caring what music she heard, as long as it comforted her during evening yell-a-thons.

Sometimes, in desperation I found myself mashing together verses from Free to Be...You and Me, the Bee Gees and Metallica as I frantically rocked, nursed, patted, swaddled, changed and calmed Miss Fussypants. No matter what cacophonic medley was created, by the end of the day an adult member of our household would always resort to the old stand-by.

When my mom came from Texas to give us a break, I tried to include her in our private baby soother and teach her the words. She was unappreciative of the fact that we let her in on our dirty little secret, and she chose to stick with the less hip "Rock-a-Bye, Baby."

One day I was out in our old neighborhood, the Western Addition, when a car drove by with the kind of speakers that make San Franciscans think that the 1989 earthquake was just practice for this, the real thing. I saw that the car (or rather I felt the vibrations reset my heart rate a good ten minutes before I had a chance to view it) contained one middle-aged very white looking fellow with slicked back hair and an earring.

He had the windows rolled down, the base cranked up like he was auditioning to be Run-D.M.C.'s audio technician, and his head was jerking about like a Giants bobbler to the tune of (you guessed it) "In da Club."

Even in my new parental out of touch with reality state, I knew that our family's hush-hush theme song was a top of the pops sensation. I was nonetheless shocked at the sight of the middle-aged goober who was attempting to jam to it. I stopped my stroller in mid push and gawked at the dude pretending to be a teenage boy in the hood.

In this city I am quite used to seeing everything from bearded Asian drag queens dressed like Foxy Brown to shirtless runaways with pierced nipples and tattooed foreheads. It takes a lot to make me turn my head. But this guy was playing our baby's song, and I suddenly felt self-conscious about our regular ghetto-blasting of 50 Cent from the Honda.

For about ten seconds I questioned the socialization of our baby into yet another wanna-be playa. However, this wore off by the time I got home and Grace needed daddy to put her down for a nap. Whatever worked behind the closed doors of our flat was fine with me.

Having a baby is frightfully similar to getting married, in terms of commitment and also regarding the buckets of cash to be siphoned from the terror that both decisions provoke. When businesses and service-providers hear the magic word, "engagement," dollar signs suddenly light up in sales persons' eyes and prices elevate by 2,000 percent.

Likewise, the baby industry is full of savage marketers who prey on the fears and insecurities of new parents. They try to convince us that we need things like mechanical lifelike teddy bears that emanate calming music and vibrate in mimicry of the womb or special baby aromatherapy calf massage cream.

My early days with Baby Grace taught me that we didn't need any of that crap. Our happiest times were simple: we needed diapers, mommy's boobies, some loving arms, and a healthy dose of our hush-hush family spokesperson, Mr. 50 Cent.

Robin Dutton-Cookston is a full-time mama and a nap-time writer, living in San Francisco with her family. She has been published in Hip Mama, Clamor, The Noe Valley Voice, Fertile Ground, and at Imperfectparent.com. Her regular column, "The Foggiest Idea," can be found at sanitycentral.com. Robin is working hard to revive her inner teenage anarchist through the creation of a new parenting zine, Apron Strings. She also publishes a sorta regular newsletter, "robin's wicked cool newsletter," for her many tens of fans. She can be reached at robin_cookston@yahoo.com.