Singing, Clapping, and Giggling

Andrea Singing

This morning we got a pretty nasty thunderstorm, and it knocked our power out for a few minutes. Andrea surprised me by running up to the window, and singing: "Rain, rain, go away/Come again some other day!" I knew she learned this song from a Dora episode where they sing it to a storm cloud to make it disappear, but I've never seen her do this before. The problem was, she truly believed it would make the storm go away! She must have sang it twenty times in a row before she finally gave up. She was also telling me that her Dora was scared, which is something new. Andrea has never seemed nervous around storms, so I don't know why "Dora" was "scary" (which is how Andrea says "scared").

[In trying to lighten the video (why do all my indoor videos turn out so dark?!), I made it appear sunny outside! It was actually quite dark and menacing.]

Kevin Clapping

Kevin has been kind of cranky, due to another cold. At Uncle Tony's birthday party yesterday, he was fussing, so I started to sing "Patty Cake" to him. To my amazement, his little hands started doing the movements! I wasn't even moving my own hands--only singing the words. Then, today, there was a show on TV with up-beat music, and he started clapping! This was the first time I'd seen him clap.

So, this afternoon, I coaxed him to clap (simply by asking him to), and then I sang "Patty Cake," and he tried to do the motions again. The "Patty Cake" actions still need some fine-tuning; especially the "roll it" part, where he kind of wrings his hands. But I am still surprised and exited by his newly-emerging skills.

This version of "Patty Cake" has special meaning for me. Grandpa Rick taught the actions to Andrea when she was 13 months old, and we were visiting him and Grandma Marty in Montana. When they come to visit in July, we can show them that Kevin is learning it, too!

Later, Andrea was watching "Yo Gabba Gabba," and there was a song on asking the kids to clap along. Andrea was in front of the TV, dancing and clapping away. I glanced over at Kevin, in his swing, and he was clapping along, too!

[Of course, by the time I got my camera primed, I missed most of it, and only got his tired attempts at the end of the song.]

Kevin Giggling

You know, Kevin's a pretty quiet baby. But certain things always make him laugh. One of those things is when I stack up his multi-coloured cups into a tower, and he knocks them down! He gets excited, and starts jabbering, when he sees me building up the tower. As soon as it's within his reach--crash! He either kicks or whacks it over, and giggles like crazy. Why do kids loves destruction so much? :))