Friday, May 27, 2011

Kids' songs for the musically (but not linguistically) inclined

Cloud has learned to sing songs by himself. The results are hilarious. He skips words and sometimes groups of words, but always leaves an adequate pause in their place, as if mentally counting off the syllables.

For instance, "C is For Cookie" goes like this:

"Hee... kiki... ... ...me,
Hee... kiki... ... ...me! Nom nom nom nom."

The Alphabet Song has a different twist:

"Bee bee bee bee bee bee...
Emm emm emm enn..." (At which point I interrupt and sing it with him correctly, because I am thrilled at the idea that he's interested in the alphabet.)

Today I overheard him tackling Old MacDonald:

"EIEIO... meow meow meow... meow meow meow... meow meow meow meow meow meow meow... EIEIO."

I'm impressed at how well the kid can carry a tune! I'm also excited at his improvements in sentence structure. And his use of pronouns. He uses pronouns incorrectly - and by that I mean 90% of the time he uses the wrong pronoun - but I'm working hard to teach him which pronoun applies to which person in each context. (I find this really frustrating. When I'm not correcting his use of pronouns, I'm dwelling on his use of pronouns. It's such a tangled mess! I don't know how to untangle it! When my young cousin had the same problem, he was much more easily corrected. When I try to correct Cloud in the same way, he just laughs.)

(Don't get me wrong - I love that he laughs so easily. That's one of his defining traits.)

(Another defining trait is the way he tries to yank me off the couch, whining and crying, when I lie down to take a rest. That trait is less endearing. Yes, I know that I'm experiencing an acute, chronic energy deficiency lately. I know I'm boring when I'm tired. I know I'm Cloud's only possible playmate when we're chillin' at home. I'm sorry. I'm tired. That's life.)

In other news, summer arrived suddenly today, which made Cloud very happy. Not only did he get to go outside without a jacket, but I actually let him wear shorts. OMG. Life is just so good.

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