Songs and Stories

I have to post this, mostly just so that decades from now I will remember what amount of joy it brought to my heart. Ellie is very into requesting songs and stories while we are driving in the car. I am totally into this too, because it makes car rides a lot of fun. Here’s a list of her most popular requests and a little about what makes them so special.
Old Mac Donald: I do most of the singing, but pause for Ellie to insert the animal names and sounds. Lucy also can be heard chiming in for some of the sounds. My favorite is when Lucy does the pig. It sounds like she’s either clearing her throat or blowing her nose. After several rounds of conventional farm Animals, Ellie has been known to claim that Old Mac Donald had a shark, to which I say “Sharks don’t live on farms,” and she replies laughing “Yes they do.” Okay, you win. But what does a shark say?

The Farmer in the Dell: I’m not sure why I started singing this one day, but Ellie loves it and requests it often. We’ve even created a sort of improv/stream of consciousness version where I sing “The farmer takes the . . . ” and wait. Ellie usually pipes in with whatever object we are driving past “Truck, light, clouds, gas station” and the song continues from there.

Goldelox and the Three Bears: Besides songs Ellie likes me to tell stories. This is my best one, I’ve perfected it over the past 2 months or so. Sometimes I’ll mess up and say that Papa Bear’s chair was too soft, or some innocent mistake like that (I am driving after all) and Ellie swoops in like a hawk to correct me. “No, no mama, Papa’s Bear’s chair was too HARD!” I’ve also added a very Toddler-friendly ending to the story where Goldelox apologizes to all the bears for being naughty and entering their home uninvited. She then invites the bear family to come have dinner at her house the following Tuesday to make amends. They accept the invite and become fast friends.