Songs for Kids

How do you feel when you learn something new from your little one? I call that "Thrilling"! 
My daughter goes to a Montessori school and in their class and there is a mix of kids aged between 3 to 5 years. I personally like that idea because I feel that way, the younger kids get inspired by the older ones. Also, the older ones are qualified to take care of the younger ones and thus they become responsible. It is a win-win situation. My daughter, who will be four years old this October, started telling that she is "almost four" after a month or two of her 3rd birthday. She wants to play the role of the older ones. It is amusing how the little ones try to grow old and we, the older ones try to hold on to our age.

One more thing I like about her school is how they are introduced to some beautiful music. I love music. I started singing to my daughter much before she started to speak. She also started humming quite early. But when I went out of stock of some new tunes, my daughter brought some pleasant and catchy tunes to our playlist. 

I posted about some interactive baby songs in one of my previous post. Here, I am extending that list. As she is growing older, our favorite songs playlist is also getting longer. So if you are looking for some beautiful tunes to play for your child, give these songs a try.

So, here are some jingles for your children:

1. Somewhere over the Rainbow:
A few days back, I heard my daughter singing this song almost correct and thus it was an easy and an amazing finding. Later, I learned that it's quite a popular one. It will surely touch your soul.

2. I think you are wonderful:
Just listen to this one and you will be clean bowled. Well, I was. The lyrics and the tune are just wow!

Whenever I play this one, my daughter can't stop singing. 

3. I think you are Wonderful, I think you are marvelous:
This one is another catchy one. It was a little difficult to find this song. But, when I finally got this one, my kid was super happy.

4. Ram Sam Dance:
Well, this one is our most recent finding. Usually, if my daughter learns any new songs, she keeps on humming. If it's new to me, I try to google it with whatever words I can gather from her singing. This one went crazy. I asked her to repeat again n again and she was just singing "A- ravi, A -ravi". That is in the middle of the song. But after a few random trials, I got the correct one.

5. Let's star jump:
Music and Movement go parallel and this one is an example. 

5. Down By The Bay:
This one is a recent addition. Yesterday, she was singing this song while playing with her Lego and I just loved it. 

There is a lot of easy and simple songs for children which they can sing to, and dance with. Beleive me, playing the same old nursery rhymes can be boring. If your kid is addicted to iPad or your phone, just play this music and teach them the movements. I am sure, it will be exciting and fun.

I always wonder how they pick those songs in her pre-school. But whatever be that means, I plan to put them all together in one place. If you have a small kid who goes to pre-school or kindergarten and you are planning to play some wonderful music for your child, here are just a few examples. As and when I will decipher a new song, I will add to her collection. Till then keep humming "I think you are wonderful"!

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How I miss those happiness that came in small packages!

I am posting after a long pause. During this gap, a lot of things happened. We took a vacation to India, met a few old friends and ate a lot. Now, I weigh a few points more. I have started taking Zumba and Dance Aerobics Classes. I hurt my knee, again. My daughter grew a few more inches and her vocabulary only includes "No, Thank You". Well, in short, life happened. 

So today, I just felt nostalgic about my childhood. My daughter amazes me every day. I see her and I just wonder how diverse is our childhood. Being brought up in a middle-class family in a small town in India, my life was quite simple. But when I look back at those black-n-white memories, they look exquisite. I can see a bag full of joy, fear, dreams, and gratitude. But today, I feel my daughter's childhood is missing that joy of getting a long-awaited gift, the year-long wait for some new dress or shoes or the overloaded happiness on getting an ice-cream without an occasion.  

Let's take a peek at my three-year-old daughter's life, from a morning, a few days back. We were late and hurriedly I picked my daughter's rain boots from her collection of 8 pairs of shoes. She observed her shoes for a second and complained "Look, Mama, I am wearing a pink dress today. Why you giving me the blue shoes?" I replied plainly "It's raining outside, you will have to wear your rain boots today". She thought for a moment and replied immediately "Okay, we will have to buy a pair of Pink boots then".

"Hmmm... Really?" I thought and smiled at the flashes of my childhood. I used to get a new shoe once every year during the Durga Puja, our most cherished festival. There was no expectation of getting another one unless the existing one was no more usable. I remember, how I used to cling to the new shoe box, even at night and insisted on going to bed with my new shoes. I used to open the box every few hours to admire the new pairs and waited patiently till the first day of the festival when I got to wear that one. On rainy days, I remember my dad covering my plain white school sneakers with a plastic and securing it with a rubber band. Ummm....the sweet old memories!

A few days back, I went to the supermarket in our neighborhood with my daughter. She ran to the bakery section to pick up her cupcakes. It's her daily practice. After her dinner, I put one on her plate. She tasted the frosting on top and exclaimed "Ummmm, it's yummy!" and put that aside. I insisted "Take a bite, please"! Her immediate reply "No, Thank You, I am done, Mamma"! She seemed determined and I was baffled. Some old hazy pictures flashed in front of my eyes. It was a day when I scored well on my annual exam and returned home with a big smile. My mom, being pleased, offered me to get me to the market and get a pastry of my choice. I was exhilarated. We went to the bakery shop and after lots of considerations, I picked a chocolate pastry. After dinner, I got my pastry and I took small nibbles so that it didn't finish up soon. I just wanted to relish each spoon as long as I could. That became a practice and my incentive to score well in the exam was a simple chocolate pastry. My love for pastry was so renowned that my sister once traveled around 8-10 hours in a bus then train and then rickshaw holding a pastry box in hand to keep the top frosting part intact. Today, after two decades, I can still savor that exhilaration I felt on opening the box. The taste is still intact in my tongue. 

The list of differences is endless. I still cherish the excitement I felt when we took a vacation to a nearly sea beach. It was a night journey by train. The first time, I stood in front of those white sand and the blue waves, something happened inside me. I was in awe and in love. The day we were returning, I was so sad that my parents had to tell me repeatedly that we would go back soon. But nowadays, on weekends, my daughter wakes up from sleep and asks “Today is school day or a holiday?” On hearing that it’s a holiday, she tells as a matter of fact “we are going to the sea, right?”

I can go on and on. But I guess, this is life. Someone may argue that it is a good sign that we are progressing forward. Now, we can afford things and thus our kids do not have to feel deprived. Well, maybe that's right. But in my own space, I miss those longings, those small pieces of happiness and how I wish I could gift a flavor of my precious childhood to my child.

Walk with me, my child, down that memory lane 

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