Music has been a large part of my daughter’s life from a very young age. She’s been to numerous toddler/baby music classes and even attended a concert during her last week in utero. She’s been sung to and at ever since she’s been out utero.
Lately she’s begun to sing back. Or “sing” back.
If there was a toddler version of Glee she definitely would not be Rachel Berry. She mumbles and rarely finishes the song she’s singing. So she basically sings a lot like the lead singer of the band who recorded In Utero.
Her song selection is random and you usually can’t quite understand the lyrics. It’s like being out at a restaurant and barely hearing a song over the din of the room. It sounds familiar but you can’t quite make out the lyrics.
My wife and I are always trying to place the song lyric our daughter is singing. Did she just sing “I wanna rock and roll all night and part of every day?” or was that “row row row your boat?”
Below is a word for word transcription of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”
Pickle pickle li'l ar.
[inaudible] where ou ar.
Up ab-ah [unintelligible] high
Lie [wharrgarble] sky.
It's definitely “Twinkle Twinkle” because she sings it whenever she sees anything resembling a star.
Her current set list consists mainly of toddler classics like “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, “Rain Rain Go Away,” “The Happy Birthday Song,” and other nursery rhyme standards.
Most of those song she picked up from us or music class. Except for one. We never taught her to sing "Happy Birthday." Like pinkeye, she just brought that home from daycare one day.
The first time she sang "Happy Birthday," it was to herself. Her birthday is months away. Then she sang it to my wife, myself, the dog, Grandma, Grandpa, the colour yellow, her bath water, "up there", her milk...basically any word she can pronounce is celebrating its birthday.
Many of her favourite songs require movements, "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Roly Poly" especially. If any adult is not performing the movements they are immediately called out and pointed at. You must do the movements. The movements are more important than the lyrics. It’s like the Katy Perry school of singing: distract with choreography and no one will pay attention to the actual song.
Of course, I’d much rather hear my daughter sing than Mrs. Russell Brand. And I do. Every single day, singing is second only to tantrums in our house. Sometimes when she sings, I’ll even join in. Until she pauses and says, “No Daddy, no.”
That’s her way of saying it’s a solo, not a duet. She’s not going to share the singing spotlight. Maybe she is like Rachel Berry after all.
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