Overheard

Two funny incidents I need to share...

The first happened a few months ago.  At the time, J's favourite CD was a lullaby one of original songs promoting breastfeeding (a free gift from WIC, you can download it here).  It featured one song that goes, "It's alright, it's okay" multiple times, in multiple verses.

Source: breastmilkcounts.com

So when I overheard him singing "It's alright, it's alright, it's alright" in a somewhat tuneless way, I was about to correct him to include "it's okay".  Then I heard the next line: "She moves in mysterious ways."  It seems that the dozen times he has heard Mysterious Ways by U2 in his life has had an impact - even if it was out of tune!  (I don't get to play 'my' music much any more.  Possibly the first time he heard this song was in utero when we went to see U2 in concert in Vancouver.  His hearing was supposedly developing that week and he sure kicked along with the vibrations.)

The second incident was this week.  A wee while ago I was throwing our recycling in the community bin at a local school when I noticed the library had been culling their big books collection.  Being an educational magpie, I swooped up anything that looked like emergent reader stuff before the rain started and brought it home.  J had a blast (and still is enjoying) turning the giant pages and having me read to him.  He even can 'read' along with me for some bits.

One of his favourites is a book called It Came To Tea by Hope Hucklesby (not to be confused with Judith Kerr's The Tiger Who Came To Tea).  It is about an intimidating stranger coming to door, shyly requesting help with a puncture, and eventually he is invited in for tea, where he turns out to be quite sweet.  The illustrations feature a very shaggy, muppet-ish monster with knobbly knees.

Anyway, I am doing something else when I notice J playing with his motorcycle and toy lion (shaggy mane!), saying something in a deep voice over and over again.

That's when I realise he is quoting the book, using his lion as 'It' and his motorcycle as a prop: "Bike's got a puncture.  Could use a patch or two.  I'm not sure how to fix it -- do you know what to do?"

A good reminder that he soaks up everything he is exposed to, and then it comes back in some form!