Genevieve Sings The Greats

You might want to read the lyrics sheet first.

Born to be Wild

Excuse Me While I Kiss This Guy

True to our modern hip parenting style Carrie and I tried to teach Genevieve sign language at an early age so that she could more easily communicate her desires before she had complex language skills. After six months of training the only thing she knew was dog. That was all well and good but it didn't really satisfy her need to communicate. The books said that if she hadn't picked it up by a year we should give up. So we gave up.

Genevieve decided to one up us by creating her own sign language and forcing us to learn it. When she wants us to sing a song she waves her arm. When she wants a particular song she has a hand gesture specific to that song. She knows "wheels on the bus", "eensy weensy spider" and "open shut them". It is actually pretty funny to watch her wave her arm at us in a demanding manner. As we lay her in her crib at night her arm will instantly swing in request of a bed time song. When she is really exhausted it is a half-hearted wave but still a request not to be ignored.

She's also started to learn the words of a few of her songs. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is the current front runner. Though for her it is "Peeckle, Peeckle, mumble mumble", she'll then trail off and mumble until she shouts "Up above" before she drops back into mumbling. She also doesn't realize that the first and last verses are the same. She just assumes we're starting over again and she never tires of the song.

We also received a kids CD as a gift that preserves our sanity. The CD "For the Kids" is full of contemporary artists either covering children's songs or creating their own. We've played it at least a hundred times and it hasn't turned our brains to mush.

Farming is hard

Genevieve, passed out after a long day of counting cows, feeding catfish, petting dogs, chasing cats, running from horses, riding in wagons, etc.

English as a Second Language

Genevieve attended her first Country Fair in Rutledge, Georgia this past weekend. She absorbed lots of quality southern culture while she was there. We ate funnel cake, her Grandparents bought her a handmade wooden duck push-toy, and she got to see the Sons of the Confederacy march in the parade.




My favorite shirt at the fair was one bearing the rebel flag and the words, "These Colors Don't Run!" I decided that in wasn't in my best interest to point out that the South actually lost the Civil War and instead tried to keep Genevieve from running over people with her new toy.

Genevieve speaks a lot and very well now. She's very good at letting me know what she wants. She may not get what she wants anyway, but at least then I know why she's mad at me. My mother was watching Genevieve when she heard birds outside. She proudly told her Grandmother that she heard a bird. Not fluent in Genevieve, my mother asked her to repeat what she said. Geneveive again said "bird". My mother still wasn't quite sure what she had said. Genevieve then gave her an exasperated look and said, "Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!"

Must be the accent.

Reading is Fundamental

Although, I think Genevieve is just looking at the pictures.

The PMRC has gone too far...

Since G has started understanding everything we say we decided to moderate the music we listen to while she is around. We weren't playing very many albums with a significant amount of questionable content so this wasn't too difficult. Most of our music is benign or has an occasional swear word with the exception of Tenacious D's album which was approximately 90% obscene.

Yesterday Carrie bought a few CDs for children. We thought she would enjoy hearing music geared towards her. They had updated versions of all the classic children's songs. There was "No More monkeys Jumping On The Bed" with a techno beat, "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" with a new-agey sound and "Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam" with a modern country sound. While I found the updates a little surprising it wasn't until I heard some of the creative editing that I got annoyed.

I think things have gone too far when "Three Blind Mice" needs to have a radio edit. You probably remember the lyrics as:

Three blind mice, three blind mice,
See how they run, see how they run,
They all ran after the farmer's wife,
Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,
Did you ever see such a thing in your life,
As three blind mice?

This was apparently too violent for the parents of today. What would our children learn from a horrible song like this? Mutilating mice?! Indeed. No, we must censor this. No more cutting off tails instead we hear the softened lyrics of "Who jumped from their tails and dropped her knife".

From now on I'm going to recommend Carrie only buy the CDs for children with the "Explicit Lyrics" parental advisory sticker.