"Hook'in Horns!"

All day long, Elena's been asking me to sing the Hook'in Horns Song. So I launch into The Eyes of Texas, and she puts her horns up, and when we get to the end she yells "shake your horns, Mommy!" She's even learning the words. Most of them are way too big for her, but she likes to try it anyway. She sounds like I do when I try to sing one of the songs from any number of anime shows--I try, but I just don't know enough Japanese to get it to come out right. Anyway, Daddy's Hook'in Horns won, and the kids celebrated by splashing around in the bath to wash the pizza off. Joseph is in love with the bath. He doesn't like pools much (too cold I guess) but he actually climbed back into the bath when I pulled him out to get him ready for bed. Elena laughed her head off at that, and Joseph was giving his "I'm too cute to be in trouble" giggle. I guess it worked because I let him play for another 15 minutes.

New Favorite

Thanks to the wonders of Harry Potter and YouTube, Elena has discovered a new favorite song--Bananaphone by Raffi. We've watched several different versions, starting with The Potter Puppet Pals (or an animated ripoff thereof), through some "skunks" (her word, I think they're actually badgers), and on to our favorite, a faster version with very simple animation. She loves the silly words, and can already sing some of it.

P.S. - You can get cell phone slipcovers, to make your very own bananaphone, here.

Rythm and Blues

The other half of my musical duo has an affinity for percussion. Here we see Joseph with two of his favorite instruments--drum and xylophone. He's getting pretty good at them, too.


We had a bit of trouble getting the pictures, though. Elena kept getting sent to time out for taking things away from Joseph and then hitting him with them.

Song and Dance

Some days, when I am very lucky, I wake to the serenade of angels. And the words of that song make my heart swell with indescribable joy...

"Twinkle wittle wittle stah
How wonder whatchew ah
Up up in in in in sky
Twinkle wittle wittle stah
How wonder whatchew ah."

Then, on the descant, comes the squeals and laughter of a baby that is utterly content with his current lot in life. It is one of the most beautiful things a person can ever hear.

Today, we watched Finding Nemo, one of Elena's favorites, and when we got to the closing credits we started to dance to the song. It was so much fun we skipped back and danced again.

It's nice to know that the ups and down of life and Mommyhood are not quite so bad as they seem at the time. Here's to happy smiles!