Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Popcorn Popping, Blossoms Bursting?....It's Autumn isn't it?

Kaylyn, our 22 month old daughter has, just in the past few weeks, fallen in love with a song. "Popcorn Popping"
It's a fun little children's song and the words go something like this;

I looked out the window and what did I see?
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring has brought me such a nice surprise,
Popcorn popping right before my eyes.
I could take an armful and make a treat.
A popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.
It wasn't really so, but it seemed to be,
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

There are corresponding hand and body movements and we sing it every week in the nursery at church. We also sing it at home, and have done so with all the children when they were little. Along with 'Old McDonald', 'Wheels on the Bus', 'Patty Cake', 'Five Green Speckled Frogs' etc.
For the past week or so Kaylyn will call each of us by name. Whoever happens to be nearest to her usually. "Way Wes" (Weston), "Nyay Nyay" (Jameson), "May May" (Megan), "Mo Mor" (Morgan), or "Det Det" (Jensen), (We have no idea how she came up with some of those pronunciations.) Also, 'mommy' or 'daddy, and she will say with resolution or sometimes questioningly, "Cop Cop" opening and closing her fists like two little 'jazz hands' (the movements for the popcorn popping). This is her way of asking whomever she is addressing to sing the 'Popcorn song' with her. Just this morning she actually said "Pop Pop", she is making some improvement on enunciation! :D
I am blogging about this(more to help us remember than anything), not so much because of Kaylyn and the 'toddler things' that make her so adorable to us, but to put down how impressed I am with the other children.
Kaylyn will often want that same song done as many as a dozen times in a row. Barney, or Mr Rogers I am not! I love children and doing things with them, but repetition gnaws at any thread of sanity I may have left. I still sing the song, I think 8 times in a row is my best with her, before I move on to at least another song. I have also added exaggerated movements, sniffing at the 'smells so sweet', pausing and bugging my eyes at 'spring has brought me such a nice surprise'. To the point that the song surely bears little resemblance to the one with the same title in the song book at church. :)
Kaylyn is just SO enthusiastic and loves that song so much right now! Every one of her siblings has 'performed' for Kaylyn every time she has requested that song. I am not kidding. Every time. Even when I have been the driver in the car, thinking, 'if I turn the radio on, pull over to ..., put in a book on tape, throw a toy at her(reading this through I had to edit this to say a toy for her to play with, not to knock her out!), etc, maybe she will get distracted and move on to something new. But Kaylyn's siblings adore her and have the patience I no longer have, or never had in the first place.
Bless their ever loving hearts! :D