Songs and Drawings

The girls continue to enjoy listening to Beatles music in the car lately, and they're both starting to catch enough of the lyrics that they can sing along with most any song from the "Sgt. Peppers" album (their current favorite.)  While Julia has been shrewdly memorizing exactly which track number corresponds with each particular song, as well as which Beatle is singing said song, Madeleine has been merely attempting to identify the specific songs by a self-interpreted title.  Most of the time, her title translations are pretty evident, as is the case in the following:

"Sergeant Pleasure"
"Lissy in the Sky With Diamonds"
"I Need a Little Help With My Friends"
"He's Getting Better All The Time"

Sometimes, I'm not quite as clear to which song she's referring, but once she sings a few lines with her interpreted lyrics I'm able to figure it out.  For instance:


"Good-bye," aka "The Ones With the Chickens."

ME: Do you mean "She's Leaving Home?"
MADELEINE: Uh, no, I mean the one that goes "Good morning, good morning, good morning..."

In other words, she means the song "Good Morning."

Another one that would have been a stumper, had she not sung the lyrics to the tune of "Lovely Rita," was "Lucky Pizza, Metah Maaaaid."

And every so often, I have absolutely no idea what song she's talking about.  Last night she threw me for a complete loop with her lullaby request.

MADELEINE: Mama, I want you to sing the one that goes "Dun dun dun dun dun dun..."
ME: Uh...which one is that?
MADELEINE: The one that goes "dun dun dun dun dun dun..."  But Mama, I want to do that part, after you do "CHEEEESE" at the end.

I was at a loss.  I tried singing "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite," but that turned out to be the wrong song.  She was REALLY adamant about me doing "CHEEEEESE" at the end.

ME: What do you mean "cheese?"  When do they say "cheese?"
MADELEINE: Mama, I'm gonna do the "dun dun dun dun dun dun" and you do the "CHEEEESE!"
ME: When do they say "cheese" though?
MADELEINE: When they say: (singing) Filllll meeeeee CHEEEEEEESE!

That finally solved it for me.  By "Fill me cheese," she really meant "Biiiill-llllyyyy Sheeeeears," the lyrics at the very end of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," and by "dun dun dun dun dun," she meant the guitar intro that elides "Sgt. Peppers" into "A Little Help from My Friends."

Phew.  Glad I finally cracked that one. 

Tonight she asked me to sing "Lissy in the Sky With Diamonds," and was full of interruptions to ask questions about the song, like "Why is she a little girl?" and "Why is the sun in her eyes?"

Following the lullaby, Madeleine had yet more questions, most of them unanswerable.  Some of the real gems were:

"Mom?  Why is singing called "singing?"
"Mom?  Why is zero not TEN?"
"Mom?  Why do astronauts not have HELIUM in them?"

And then there was this conversation:

MADELEINE: Mom?  Guess what I was dotting?
ME: Um...I don't know.  What?
MADELEINE: No, GUESS!
ME: Uh...a lower-case 'I'?
MADELEINE: No!
ME: So what?
MADELEINE: GUESS!
ME: I really don't know.  Can you tell me?
MADELEINE: Uh, I was dotting TWELVE!  But Mama?  What are all those little black dots that are flying around in circles?

I just.  Don't know.

In other song news, Madeleine announced yet another variation of her "Five Little Laps" song today.  This version is called "None Little Laps," and it goes like this: "None little laps, on the top of the nothing..."

That is TRUE ingenuity, I tell you.

And finally, moving from the topic of the musical arts to the visual arts, Madeleine decided to take it upon herself to draw a picture of Betty Bunny today, complete with the names of our family members written on the top of the page.  For reference, here is the illustration of Betty Bunny from one of the Betty Bunny books:

And here is Madeleine's slightly creepy, zombie bug-eyed version of Betty Bunny:

Now, before you go ahead and think that this is a pretty darn good bunny for a 3.5-year-old, let me forewarn you that Madeleine dumped this picture as a TOTAL and UTTER failure because Betty Bunny's skirt did NOT come out like JULIA makes skirts.  She just wanted to THROW this picture in the GARBAGE.

It's a good thing that she was blissfully unaware of the fact that in the text up top, her "J" is backwards and all of her "E"s are four-pronged.  Who knows what kind of damage that would have led her to pine for; throwing this picture in the GRILL while Daddy is making burgers, perhaps??

Maybe next time, instead of getting frustrated, she can ask for her sister to help make the skirt, since it seems that she may need a little help with her friends.