Name That Tune

One thing that has always worked to make J calm when he's upset is singing to him. He's very particular however about the type of music though and will not respond to pop, country, folk or anything contemporary. Kids songs though are always almost instantaneously successful though. I don't know if it's the lyrics, the melody or the rhyming that does it but they work pretty much every time. As everybody with kids knows singing the same songs over and over again gets old very quickly so we've made up a few special verses/interjections to keep things interesting. The rest of this post is of interest probably to no one but us but I have to document for our memories the songs we sing to Josh.

Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes is probably the number one but since he can't really point to body parts yet we've made up our own verses to keep it interesting. Here are the ones I can remember right now...

Head and Shoulders, Knees and ......, Eyes and Ears and......
Tummies......Babies that are yummy
Tushies......Eyebrows that are bushy
Shins........Little double chins
Bones........Sleepy baby moans
Thighs.......Babies who don't cry
Gut..........None existent Butt
Gums.........Tasty baby thumbs
Teeth........Chubby baby feet
Hair.........Skin that is so fair
Hearts.......Stinky baby farts
Lips.........Skinny baby hips
Heels........baby laughs and squeals



The itsy-bitsy spider is another favorite even without the hand movements and on one extended car trip, Scott decided to add some interjections at the end of each line and now we can't think of the song with out them.

The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout (Because he could)
Down came the rain and washed the spider out (It's a flood)
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain (Now a drought)
And the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again (He's tenacious)


For twinkle, twinkle little star I've made my own second verse which I think is an amalgamation of other verses out there but I like mine best

When the blazing sun is set, little light your shining yet
Up above the milky way, twinkling on until it's day,
Twinkle, twinkle litter star how I wonder what you are.

Other favorites that we haven't been creative with are "Home on the Range", "You are my sunshine" and the "Wheels on the bus". I think we've about maxed out on those though so a new toddler music CD may need to be purchased soon for all of us.