Musical Girl

I've been meaning to write a post about how musical Brianna is. Now, I assume most kids around 2 years old may show an interest in music because I know at even younger than the age of one they are able to clap and show interest in rhythm and sway and things like that. So I'm not saying she's more musical than other kids her age, all I'm saying is that I love how quickly she is able to learn songs because it creates some really fun games for us! (I can distinctly remember my niece Claire singing one of the songs from "Happy Feet" when she was like 16-18 months old or something like that, so it just goes to show that they can learn them very early!)

Part of Brianna's bedtime routine has always been to sing to her. This was created by her and the songs really haven't changed in a year and a half. When she was about 21 months old, we put her in Kindermusik, which is like a Mommy and Me music class. Here at 31 months (whaaaa!?!?) she is still loving it. We did a curriculum last year that featured different songs so she is learning totally new songs this year, which is great considering we have the CDs from last year's classes so we can still hear them anytime we want. So some of her favorite songs are songs the average person probably wouldn't know. But now she has added in some of her favorite songs to her bedtime routine: Amazing Grace, You Are My Sunshine, Twinkle Twinkle, I'm a Little Teapot, I'm in the Lord's Army, Zaccheus, Ring Around the Roses, and usually something from preschool. For some reason she never requests some of her favorites, like Muffin Man, Hokey Pokey or Get On Board. Usually I have to tell her we're going to stop singing because the singing part of the bedtime routine can take 20 minutes, especially if I'm feeling especially kind.

All this to say, she picks up songs really quickly, learning the words and the melody, and I totally love it. She sits with me in choir practice a lot, and although she spends a lot of her time coloring, she does a lot of dancing as well, and also when we finish a song she will say, "Again!?"

She doesn't understand that on Sunday nights at church there is choir practice and on Wednesday nights there isn't. (Obviously I don't expect her to understand this...) So basically every time we walk into church she says, "We're going to choir?" or "I wanna do choir". Last night at church when she walked in saying that, Stephen and I looked at each other and said, "Well, go on up and sing with a microphone!" We always get there early because youth group starts 30 minutes before regular church, so while there were people milling about it wasn't an overwhelming number. She took a microphone up to the front with her but when she realized people where watching her she hid under the pulpit and refused to sing - "Mommy do it!" After just a couple of minutes, though, she realized no one could see her in her hiding spot and she started belting it out. I had to hold the microphone up to her mouth for her rendition of Amazing Grace but by the time she got to You Are My Sunshine she was holding the mic like an expert and really singing out!

Someone asked if she would do it on a Sunday and I said, probably if she could hide under the pulpit again! Haha!