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Total
Request Live Throughout the day, I
sing a wide variety of songs to the girls.
Some are Broadway show tunes, others are from animated Disney movies,
Veggie Tales, songs I learned when I was young, and those I’ve learned while
nannying, working at school, attending teacher workshops, etc. I have quite the repertoire without making
any up on my own, but those can be amusing, too.
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Making Up the Words One example of why I am better suited to write children’s books than
children’s songs occurred many years ago when I was nannying for “my two little
guys.” I would sing the “If your happy
and you know it” song, then continue by adding in whatever the boys were doing
at the time. For example, “if you’re
happy and you know it, play with a train.”
My youngest sister Theresa was hanging out with me and the boys that
day, and she got to hear what has got to be one of my most hilarious
spur-of-the-moment kids’ song concoctions yet.
I kept singing and doing the running commentary of what the boys were
doing until I cheerfully sang, “If you’re happy and you know it, knock your
balls!” One of the boys was playing with
two of the plastic spheres from his shape sorter toy and was making noise with
them. And that’s yet another reason why
I like writing things down—because it gives me the opportunity to revise.
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“It’s Peepee on the Potty Time!” Over the past
few weeks, I’ve created and been using a short, catchy (in that annoying will
get stuck in your head and be requested over and over again by any toddlers in
your vicinity kind of way) song to encourage children to use the potty.
“It’s
peepee on the potty time!! peepee on the potty time!!
Peepee on the potty, peepee
on the potty,
peepee on the potty like a
big girl now.”
After using the first two lines of the
intro (which is all in caps above), you do the next two lines super fast like
the banana says “peanutbutterjelly” is likewhen you’re saying
“peepeeonthepotty” all run together.
Here’s the video and a warning: you really should not play the following
video clip if you tend to get songs stuck in your head (unless, of course,
you’re desperate enough to try anything that might work to encourage potty
training to go more smoothly.)
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Tutoring in Math I went to a Math tutor my senior year of high school because I had the misfortune of getting the same teacher I’d had (and was not impressed with) my freshmen year. Fortunately the tutor was really sweet and helped me a ton with my Trigonometry. We sat at her dining room table to do work while her husband watched their young children in another room on the same floor. The bathroom was very close to the dining room, so one evening we overheard a discussion while their dad was potty training one of the boys. The woman apologized, and I just burst out laughing. I wasn’t the least bit offended or put-off that we occasionally heard sounds of little ones talking or learning to use the potty, as it were. At the end of the school year, I presented my tutor with a parody I had done taking Math terms and giving them alternative definitions. I titled it “Potty Math.” She thought it was hilarious and hung it up in their bathroom.
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My Husband: Not much of a linguist Kevin is often coming up with made-up words that he tries to pass off as
him speaking in a foreign language. He
does know the correct pronunciation for some words in a few different
languages, but he wings it from there with limited success and lots of
laughter. When struggling with someone
who was asking questions that were directed to my husband rather than another
department who would be able to answer them, he came up with a new phrase he
shared with his co-worker once the call had ended. No hablo give-a damn-o which Kevin says
means: ‘I don’t know’ in Spanish. I love
him dearly, but his ‘not knowing’ is sometimes blatantly obvious in any
language.
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We
both made the team! Thank you
everyone for the prayers you sent our way.
Things went very well with the audition.
Check back later for more details, but know that the Potters are part of
the team now.
