There's only so many rounds of Old MacDonald Had a Farm (our current bathtime favourite) that you can sing before you start getting silly. In our case, we take turns to choose the animal and while I dutifully slogged through horses, chickens, sheep etc when it came to my husband's turn he got mischievous. "Old MacDonald had a..." we sang in unison and I looked at him for his choice. "Narwhal" he sang happily. "Okay," I said. "With a...?" We improvised with whale-like sounds. Since then we've had jellyfish (flobber flobber), New Age Hippies (Chakra Chakra) and WWOOFers (Willing Workers On Organic Farms - with a Woof Woof, obviously).
A fairly cutey-pie book called I'm a Baby, You're a Baby in which a baby meets a whole range of baby animals (sample text: I'm a baby, you're a baby. We are baby ducks. Ducklings!) has now been transformed into a surreal litany with bouncing on knees incorporated. I'm a baby, you're a baby. We are baby sausages. Chipolatas! and the even odder I'm a baby, you're a baby, we are baby chainsaws. Pocketknives! It keeps the neural pathways on their toes.
I have a friend who invented a cheese song for her baby made up of a pretty catchy tune listing every possible kind of cheese and even extending out into other dairy products like yoghurt. I think it had 30-odd verses...
And yet, any nursery rhyme learned as a child must stay exactly as remembered. I'm still reeling from a CD of songs which confidently trills, "This is the way the ladies ride: nim nim nim, nim nim nim."
Nim nim nim? It's trippitree-tree, woman, what's wrong with you?
A fairly cutey-pie book called I'm a Baby, You're a Baby in which a baby meets a whole range of baby animals (sample text: I'm a baby, you're a baby. We are baby ducks. Ducklings!) has now been transformed into a surreal litany with bouncing on knees incorporated. I'm a baby, you're a baby. We are baby sausages. Chipolatas! and the even odder I'm a baby, you're a baby, we are baby chainsaws. Pocketknives! It keeps the neural pathways on their toes.
I have a friend who invented a cheese song for her baby made up of a pretty catchy tune listing every possible kind of cheese and even extending out into other dairy products like yoghurt. I think it had 30-odd verses...
And yet, any nursery rhyme learned as a child must stay exactly as remembered. I'm still reeling from a CD of songs which confidently trills, "This is the way the ladies ride: nim nim nim, nim nim nim."
Nim nim nim? It's trippitree-tree, woman, what's wrong with you?
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