Last night I had some special girl time with my eldest before bed. We painted her fingernails. She chose blue, of course. While waiting for them to dry we made some funny faces and sang some songs.
My girl loves to sing. Both of my older girls do, in fact, though Lass is still working on the words a bit… Miss goes all out in singing her favorites. She lifts her chin up and belts them out at full volume. In the car, in the playroom, at the store, on the swingset, wherever. We were even informed by her teachers that she sings like this at school. I absolutely love that she does this. I think it might be a little bit hereditary, because I think I used to sing like that when I was a kid too (okay, I still do). I remember singing with my mom and my Grandma a lot. My Mom and I used to rock out to “Barbara Susanne Stripe” (a.k.a. Barbara Streisand), Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow on 8-track. Or we’d sing all sorts of kid’s songs: You are My Sunshine, Eensy Weensy Spider, Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, and so on. My Grandma is a very talented musician, and she used to play the piano and teach me lots of old-timey songs. I think singing is an expression of happiness. It’s good for the soul.
We sing a lot in our family. My husband plays the guitar and we sing along with him in the evenings. The girls and I sing lots of little songs during the day. We sing while we play, while we are in the car, while we do just about anything. I’ve had strangers chuckle at me for singing with my girls in the grocery store. I think it’s usually a nice, friendly chuckle. I hope. I’m no vocal sensation, but I can carry a tune. And who doesn’t love a moving rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in their grocery’s produce section?
Anyway. Back to last night. After Miss and I finished with her nails, while they were drying, she was singing her latest favorite song, “Whistle While You Work.” I especially love when she sings the songs from Snow White, because she doesn’t just sings the words, she does the vocal trilling “ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…” like Snow White does. I don’t know if that’s the right term to describe it, but it’s so cute. And since I can’t really describe it well, I captured it on video. Though my girl sings loudly and unselfconsciously almost all day long, like most kids her age she was a little less willing to do it on command. When I first asked her to sing for the camera, she said that she had “run out” of singing. But then when I told her that I wanted to take a video of her and she could watch it afterwards, well, I could just see the wheels turning as she thought about that. She’s more timid and much quieter than usual in the video. But I couldn’t help but smile when I watched and listened to her sing her song.
