Mary Sings!

Just a few weeks ago, Mary (23 months) suddenly took a great interest in singing. She began asking me to sing to her at nap and bed times. She began requesting certain songs by name, and interrupting me if I sang the wrong song, correcting me to sing another song. Then she began singing along! I think her brain is in a phase of learning how to memorize, as she also busted loose the other night by praying almost perfectly Grace After Meals.

This morning I overheard Mary in the bonus room singing "Brother John" repeatedly, so I decided to try to film her singing various songs today. When I got up there, she was standing atop a bookshelf and waving around a pick-up stick like a conductor. (In a lot of these videos, she is wearing her sleeping tee-shirt, and both the shirt and Mary's mouth are covered in chocolate milk from breakfast.)

Singing "Frere Jaques": Mary actually knows the French as well as the English, not that I captured it on this video. I had to laugh one day when I was putting her to sleep and I began singing "Frere Jaques," to which she replied indignantly, "Don't sing Jaques! Sing Brother John!"

Singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

Singing "Wheels on the Bus": Before having kids, I was so irritated at this song. I'm not in love with the song now, but Mary sure is. She has made it a required part of every time she falls asleep, so we sing it often. Even if she doesn't want to go to sleep, I can say, "Let's go upstairs and sing Bus," and she'll almost always come running.

This is a video of the kids simply chatting. It's a pretty sedate video (unlike all these other thrill-a-minute videos), but I thought maybe the grandparents would like to see two minutes of a typical morning of making beds and getting dressed for the day.