It’s all trains, all the time around here lately. Jonah’s even made up a few songs about them based on the trains he loves from Thomas the Tank Engine. In the verses I caught here, he’s talking about James and Gordon going back to their Sheds. I love how Nora ‘dances’ – she does this move whenever she hears music anywhere. It’s all pretty adorable.

I mentioned earlier that Jonah has become a rather huge fan of everything related to Thomas the Tank Engine. Even though he rarely watches tv, we recently began checking out Thomas DVDs from the library, so that he can watch a story and a song if he takes a good nap (which he resists, but still desperately needs). Jonah especially loves the sing-along-songs and tries really hard to learn all the words as he watches. He was practicing one of the songs one afternoon and kept getting frustrated because neither of us could remember what came next, so I looked up the lyrics and printed them out for him. He walked around (and slept with) with that paper for a few days, and now he’s got the whole song down. One night he was up until almost eleven(!), enthusiastically singing over and over and over…

Here he is, practicing. And if you’re curious about what the original song sounds like, and don’t mind it haunting you in your sleep for the rest of your life, click here.

One of Jonah’s favorite stalling maneuvers is to grab his ukulele and say that first he needs to sing a song about doing whatever it is he’s trying to put off doing (go to the bathroom, pick up toys, take a nap, etc.) He made up this song about taking a bath a few weeks ago and has sung it several times. On this night, Nora was taking her bath first, so he was happy to sing a new verse about “Jonah’s going to take a bath all by his self.” Then he was cracking himself up by singing about taking a bath “all by his school bus” and other crazy things. Later he stops to ask himself what letter sound is at the end of ‘self’. Near the end, he was a bit distracted by Nora sitting on the counter because we don’t usually sit on counters, but she was brushing her teeth for the first time while she watched the end of the song.

Lyrics: It’s time to take a bath because the sun’s going down
A little bit A little bit
So that’s why Jonah’s gonna take take take a bath
All by his self (or school bus or ducks or Dad…)

Here’s a collection of songs that I’ve captured over the past two months. Some are Jonah originals and others are slightly more well-known tunes.

The playlist:

1) Monkeys on the Leaves – This is from when Ricky was visiting and requested a song about monkeys.

2) Twinkle/Jingle – Jonah plays the drum for this one.

3) Here are the Bananas – Jonah started singing this song at the grocery store produce section and sang it throughout the store. Usually he stops when other people pay attention to his singing, but this time he kept going for the whole trip and made lots of people laugh. In the car, he said he wanted to get his ukulele to play when we got home, so that’s the first thing he did when we walked in the door. (Notice Nora’s still in her carseat and starts munching on the mail.)

4) Once, Once, Once – Jonah’s ode to his microphone stand, I guess. Nora was his enthralled audience for this number.

5) Wheels on the Bus – He does one verse about the wipers and then moves on to some nonsense words to crack himself up.

6) Speckled Frogs – This is his recent favorite. He started singing this while I was changing Nora’s diaper and then ran off to get his ukulele “with the capo so it can make a different sound.”