Rhymes all day ....

There was a time a few weeks ago when all we saw on TV started with "Jingle bells jingle bells jingle all the way" and ended with "Two little hands to clap clap clap, two little feet to tap, tap, tap". It was a crazy time - no adult TV just rhymes rhymes and more of the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We were going through a difficult eating phase with Lil' General and what magically worked for every meal time was playing his favorite nursery rhymes CD. What began out of desperation slowly turned into a habit.

Learning rhymes was a new experience for me. My exposure to one as a child started with "Twinkle, twinkle little star" and stopped with the same. Don't be surprised when I see I didn't know even the common ones such as "baba baba black sheep" or "Humpty dumpty sat on the wall." I never went to nursery or pre-school or for that matter did my Kindergarten. A few years later I learnt one or two when my younger brother started nursery but that was as far as it went. Funny but years later I feel complete and satisfied now being able to sing a jingle or two. It's weird how some of the lyrics don't make any sense at all and kids sing and sway happily to these such as the
Lady bird, lady bird your house is on fire. All children gone except one and that's little Ann. She's buried under some sand" so it goes... or "It's raining. It's pouring and the old man is snoring"...

LG's favorite one is "Two little hands to clap clap clap, two little feet to tap, tap ,tap". Usually by the time we reach this part of the CD, he is done with his food and he loves clapping and pointing to my eyes and repeating "eye eye". "Here we round the mulberry bush" rhyme is followed by his imaginary act of combing my hair. The first few times I failed to understand what he wanted to do which just added to his frustration. Now Id uly bend my head and he combs it. I don't know what's so funny about the huge guy in Hot cross buns that he jumps in his high chair all excited. The clock in our living room is close to the fan if you see it linearly. When the "Hickory Dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock" rhyme played I would point at the clock and he always understood the fan for the clock and happily pointed at the fan in all the rooms when the song played. As always unlearning a certain thing is tougher than teaching them. So repeated pointing at the clock finally did it. The Seniol loves falling down to Ringa ringa roses and ouching ...Lil' General loves the antics and the way he enacts each rhyme ..

The dependence on rhymes has gone down over the past week drastically but it never fails to put a huge grin on his face when I switch on the CD.