Old MacDonald

One of our ongoing assignments with speech therapy is to sing Old MacDonald so Tucker can learn his animal sounds. So, we sing, and we sing, and we sing. We sing in the car, at the breakfast table, in the grocery store, in the morning while he gets dressed... by golly, we sing.

I am proud to say, he is finally getting it! He has learned about Old MacDona'ds sheep, cow and horse. He's really good at the sheep... not so much with the cow and the horse. But we're working on it, and it's pretty cute to listen to in the process.

If you were to ride in the car with us, this is what you might hear:

(My voice is the plain text; Tucker's voice is italicized.)

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a Sheep. E-I-E-I-O!
With a -
Baaa!
here and a -
Baaa!
there. Here a -
Baaa!
There a -
Baaa!
Everywhere a -
Baaaa!

Right. So he's got that verse down. And he does it with such a sweet smile on his face, so proud that he knows just what to say at the right time.

But silly mommy has to go on to verse two, which sounds something like this:

Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O!
And on that farm he had a Cow.
E-I-E-I-O!
With a -
Baaa!
No, Moo.
Booo!
here and a -
Baaa!
No, Moo.
Boooo!
There. Here a -
Baaa!
No, Moo. There a -
Baaa-Booo! (He corrected himself that time.)
Everywhere a -
Baaaa!

As you can see, it's a work in progress. And the horse verse isn't much better, although he gives me the occasional "aaaay!" for nay. Today when I reminded him to say nay, he pointed to his knee instead. Nay... knee... who's to say, really?

This English language... pretty tricky. You have to admit.

So we'll keep singing, and I'll keep introducing more animals, including those who belong in Old MacDonald's Zoo instead, since there aren't many songs about the sounds of lions and bears.

And if all this singing will keep him awake as we travel home from morning errands to naptime, then I'm all for it. It's an added bonus, aside from the whole language development thing. You know how it goes.