Julia, Julia quite Contrary

Last night while Julia was cleaning up her toys before bed, I started singing the clean-up song that her Yia-yia made up, since I vastly prefer that one to the Barney & Friends "Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere..." Julia and Madeleine both seemed to get into Yia-yia's song, and Julia kept asking for repeat performances as she cleaned up. When she was down to the last 2 or 3 toys, I asked her if she wanted me to sing the clean-up song one last time, and she said yes. I then asked her if she could sing along with me, and was not surprised to hear her say no. While she will happily sing "Once Upon a Dream," "Away in a Manger," etc. all day, she will really ONLY sing on her terms. She is absolutely not a group participator when it comes to singing - she won't even join in the songs at preschool. Anyway, I had some crazy notion that if I just asked her to sing with me, she would willingly do it, so I tried again, this time telling her Yia-yia would be so proud if she knew Julia had learned her clean-up song. Julia responded that she couldn't sing it because she doesn't know the words, so I said, "Okay, well since I know the words, I guess I'll just have to sing it." Then instead of "Let's clean up, let's clean up..." I sang, "Let's climb a tree, let's climb a tree..." which elicited the response I was looking for, that these weren't the right words. So I then asked Julia if she could sing me the correct words. Now, I must point out, reverse psychology has never worked on this child - she is way too stubborn to fall for my bait - so I'm not sure what I was thinking here. In any case, she immediately got her grumpy, obstinate face and replied, "It goes, 'let's go riding in an elevator." I swear, she will do ANYTHING to be contrary sometimes! When I tried to make her laugh by substituting those words for the correct ones, she again stopped me, this time telling me in an even more obstinate, grumpy voice, "No, it's 'let's ride a horse." I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything different; this is the child who once said to me, "No, Daddy is not home. Someone ELSE is home," when she was in a grouchy mood and I tried to redirect her attention to Daddy coming in the door, and who also told me she wanted me to throw her snack in the garbage when she was mad at me one day.

And speaking of obstinate, Ethan tried to videotape Madeleine whacking away at the package of toilet paper like it was a drum, but she decided to perform for the camera in an entirely different way...