She Loves to Sing

For months, and yes, I do mean months, Lia has been singing a particular song that goes 'A dinga danga rob'. That's it. 'A dinga danga rob'. Ad infinitum.

She has quite a repertoire of songs, most of which I have no problem identifying and helping her out with (she's not that fantastic at getting the words right but I guess that's to be expected LOL) but the 'a dinga danga rob' song was beyond even my powers of deduction.

I'd just about given up on ever finding out what the song was (I was hardly going to go to her nursery and ask them to tell me what 'A dinga danga rob' was) when yesterday she finally added a second line - 'with a flippy floppy hat'!

How dumb am I that I never equated 'A dinga danga rob' to 'A dingle dangle scarecrow'?

I've no idea how the 'rob' part got into her little head but she is now singing the whole song complete with her version of the first line and no amount of persuading will get her to say scarecrow.

This is now included in her daily repertoire which I get in the car twice a day. The others are:

• Old MacDonald (who every time has a cow, duck, horse, goat, pig, dog and kangaroo in that order)
• Twinkle Twinkle Chocolate Bar (I'm not sure I approve of her learning alternative versions of things because I have no idea how to assist if she forgets a word)
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (much safer ground for Mummy)
  
• If You're Happy and You Know It (have you ever tried to stamp your feet whilst driving? Even worse she's now added 'shake your bum' to the things you have to do)
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas (no amount of persuasion will convince her to stop with the festive numbers)
• A Whale in a Manger (yes really, that's what she sings and it's too fantastic a line for me to correct her)
• When Santa Got Stuck up the Chimney (because she loves the 'achoo' bit)

It's a bit too early to tell if she's inherited my lack of singing talent. Actually my families lack of singing talent.

My poor father endured years of torturous car journeys when my Mum, Brother and I would sing to pass the time. The phrase 'can't carry a tune in a bucket' describes the three of us but what we lacked in tunefulness we made up in our ability to always remember the words. My Dad on the other hand had a decent singing voice but never joined in because he was useless at remembering the words.

I should add that these journeys were usually around 8 hours long as we were heading from the south of England all the way up to Scotland to visit my Mother's family. My chronic travel sickness meant my Mother had to invent ways to keep me occupied for the journey - I Spy wears a bit thin after a while - and so singing it was. Generally it was old Music Hall Songs such as 'Burlington Bertie' and 'I'm Henry the Eighth I Am' and I'm currently thinking if I can teach Lia a couple that'll confuse the heck out of the girls at nursery!