On the list of odder favorites is a version of “I Am the Pirate King” from Pirates of Penzance.  I frigging love hearing a toddler singing “it is, it is a glorious thing to be the pirate king,” and she requests it OVER and OVER.  The newest addition is their first Beatles tune.  They’re positively nuts for “Yellow Submarine.”  As with anything they fixate on, they just want to hear it on repeat.

They love it so much that yesterday, I had to go get all stern with Daniel at naptime because he’d been shouting the song as loud as he could for nearly 25 minutes.

Tonight, they requested it at bedtime (they also sometimes request Queen’s “Bicycle Race,” don’t even ask…).  Apparently I did not start singing it in a timely enough fashion, because Daniel started belting it on his own.  Blessedly, the video camera was already upstairs and had just barely enough charge for me to capture it. The lighting stinks, but all parents know what a miracle it was that he didn’t immediately stop singing the moment I went to grab the camera.  So I’ll take it.

Enjoy.

Yellow Submarine from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

Rebecca, in particular, has started specifically instructing me to take her picture. “Mommy, take a picture of Becca eating her snack!” Uh, ok! If I’m honest, I suspect it’s due in part to a desire for attention (and… ahem… for me to stop checking my damn email).  But whatever the motivation, I’m happy to oblige.

Yesterday, she was all about singing songs for me.  She loves to sing, and it tickles me to no end to hear her singing to herself in the backseat of the car.  Sometimes she likes the applause when it’s done, sometimes she’s just doing it for her own amusement.

Enjoy!

Am I the lamest mom in the world, or do other people hate it when their kids want to get on the swings?  Seriously, when you’re climbing or going down the slide, I can just watch.  With the swing, it’s all the lifting in and pushing and lifting out and getting shoes stuck and various annoying things.  Yes, I’m a lazy parent.

Anyways, this week I made a way-overdue change to our backyard playscape and removed the baby swings that have been hanging on the swingset for a year and a half.  I was tired of them, and the kids were getting bigger and heavier and we kept losing shoes on the dismount.  And both of them are perfectly capable of sitting on a normal swing.

I put the swings almost as low as they get so that the kids can get in and out on their own (furthering my lazy-ass parenting their independence).  Rebecca has mastered pulling herself up by holding onto the chains, but Daniel and his less-coordinated, less-body-aware self hasn’t quite figured it out.  Daniel was a little distressed at first because of the way the swing can sometimes twist around instead of going straight back and forth.  But he got over it and, completely without my intervention, managed to learn every little boy’s favorite playground trick entirely on his own:

Yes, this video is from my phone.  As a combined birthday/anniversary gift, M decided I should go upgrade to the newer iPhone.  It is, to quote the great Fresh Prince, the new hotness. What’s that, you say?  You want ANOTHER phone video just for some extra special cuteness?  Well, alright.  Since you asked so nicely.

Here you go, my Becca Bean, and her rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

Turn the screen around.

All of a sudden, they love performing and seeing themselves!  It was a big hit.  So, today, I give you number one in a trifecta of music videos (or is it a triptych? Lord, I don’t know. Point is, there are three).  Up first: Daniel.

Daniel’s ABCs and 123s from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

But sometimes, you just can’t stop the crazy.  So it has been at bedtime lately. They seem to feel the need to go a little extra bonkers right before they get in the tub, and typically it has involved a lot of running in circles and shrieking. Enjoy!

Bedtime Crazies from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

And, not surprisingly, it turns out they get a total kick out of watching me do it. M has taught them to say “go, Mommy, go!”  They chit-chat about the “lady” (my on-screen avatar) running, they want to see her skate (an in-line skating jumping drill), and they mimic the trainer’s instructions.  Heck, all you have to do is give Daniel some empty spools of thread and he’s off to the races (his attempt at an unassisted forward “roll” and self-congratulatory “you did it!” is a bonus).

Exercisin’ from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

Definitely means I’m out of excuses for not getting my exercise. The kids love it, too!

As you know, we have taken some Music Together classes that the kids have really enjoyed.  They love the songs and request them by name, and have even started to sing along to some of their favorites.  During the weeks upon weeks of rain, at a loss for activities, I dug my guitar out of a closet, tuned it up, and let the kids strum on it just like they loved to do in Music class.  Plus, the Music Together literature includes chords and musical notation for all of the songs, so I tried to remember the three or four chords I used to know in another life.  Discovered we can do a little sing-along with the Me/You/We song, which the kids now request ad nauseum.  Today, I got them to do a bit on their own.

Plus, as proof that I wasn’t making it up the other day, I got Rebecca to sing almost the entire alphabet song. When she doesn’t think I’m watching, she’ll mumble it to herself constantly.  When I’ve got the camera on, she wants a little more prompting.

So, excuse the grainy lighting as we were inside on another gray day, and enjoy my not-quite-virtuosos. (And listen for Daniel to chime in at the very end, clearly eavesdropping from the kitchen.)

Playing Guitar from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

Rebecca is into this whole new area of social development. For the last month or two, she almost always carries around one or more of her stuffed animals or dolls. Turtle. Baby. Austin & Tasha. Bear. Her loyalty shifts, and sometimes she tries to hold all of them at once, but she loves carrying them around. In particular, she now has really sweet interactions with them. She’ll insist on holding Turtle at breakfast, but will also attempt to feed him (her?) bananas, share milk, and the like. She’ll also have each one of them, in sequence, “kiss” me and M (complete with kissing sound effect from Rebecca). She talks to them, often in gibberish, but is clearly having a conversation with them and telling them very important things. It’s really neat to see her play out a lot of the things that we do with her on a regular basis.

Wednesday was a whole lot of cute that I managed to grab the camera for: she was pushing them on the swing. Complete with “whee!!” from Rebecca. What a sweet girl she is.

Turtle on the swing from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.

Anyways, while I’m on the verge of seasonal affective disorder, or just a total mental breakdown, I thought I’d just put up something silly and random to make you smile. This is Daniel on Wednesday (oh lord, was that only yesterday?) morning. The pajamas came off after an oatmeal incident at breakfast. The rest… well… the rest just happened in the way things just happen with toddlers. You bet your ass I’m showing this to his prom date.

Interesting Wardrobe Choice from Goddess in Progress on Vimeo.