It's almost as if she knows that she's in an iPod world, where you can have music with you at all times, anywhere you go.
We wake up in the morning and we listen to music. When she gets bored of eating in her high chair, we sing to her to keep her eating her breakfast. Then we go put on another CD, and we dance. Then we play while the music is on, and generally try to press all sorts of other toys we have that make music. Sometimes Elli purposefully listens to the song on the CD, and then will pull out a toy that sings the same song and have both playing at the same time (albeit in "canon" style). Othertimes, we just randomly press all sorts of buttons so that there are three or four songs going all at once. We listen to music to fall asleep for naps and night time, and Mommy knows and sings all sorts of silly songs that go along with both daily tasks (like washing our hair) and fun things (like going swimming).*
And then we introduced her to music videos via the Noggin website (Elli is a huge Laurie Berkner fan) and via a Barney songs DVD. And our highly active, snuggly-only-when-tired little girl became a "let me sit on your lap and stay still for 5 minutes in one stretch" little snuggle bug. This is now our preferred method for clipping her fingernails -- she'll sit right through the entire process and gets frustrated only when we accidentally reach within her line of sight and she can't see what's going on.
Last night I decided to test her newfound powers of concentration. Elli hates having bows in her hair, but this is becoming a problem, as the only bows she will keep in are fast becoming too small for her lengthening hair. So last night, she let me brush her hair, pull it up in a pony tail, and put in a hair tie. Viola! Her first ponytail.
This was just proof of concept. Next time we'll go for more style points!
* My friend Jenn is screaming with recognition at this admission. I recall a trip we took to NYC together where the entire trip home (4 hours) was her saying something to me and me phrasing my response in the form of a song lyric. Remarkably, we're still friends.
1 comment:
Oh man, I forgot all about that! (Trauma dissociation, no doubt.) Though I do remember us singing Moxie Fruvous's "You Will Go to the Moon" very loudly in a London hotel lobby. (I also just told someone in my MFA program the story of the time we were in the NYC cab with Liza Dawson and you busted out with "Geese ... flying in unison" from Govie School and I about peed my pants with laughter.)
Maya is quite the vocalist around here too. The other day she pretended to drive a tractor to Costco (?) while singing into my lipstick tube like a microphone.
Love the ponytail!
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