Total Recall

Yesterday Esha surprised me by holding a request a nursery rhyme session. She was just sitting down singing a couple of songs to herself and then she just asked me out of the blue which song she should sing next. At first, I told her a few that I have heard her sing before. But she wouldn’t stop asking for more. We must have gone through 15-20 different rhymes and she sang all of them. That totally caught me by surprise – yes, she has a few nursery rhyme books which we read to her and she listens to them in the car, but I didn’t know she knew the words to all of them – including things like the second stanza of Sing A Song of Sixpence.

During the session, if I tried repeating the names of any of the rhymes that I had asked her before she would immediately interject “I already singed it“. And if at any time I got stuck figuring out which one to ask her to sing next, she would proffer up a suggestion such as “Maybe I sing Little Miss Muffet?“. By the end of the session I had exhausted the list of rhymes that I knew top of the head, and had to say “Sorry, baby, but I don’t know any more rhymes”. I don’t know how she learned these songs all of a sudden, or maybe she learned them over time but never sang them at home. But now, I officially declare Esha to know more nursery rhymes than Smita. Ever since, I have been trying to get encore for Smita to hear, but she has steadfastly refused. I guess they just need to be in the right mood.

It’s funny how fast they grow. Just a couple of months ago she was struggling to learn the lines for her first rhyme – Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. One fine moment you just go from “How many times should I tell you – this is green not red.” to “Wow! I didn’t know you could do this. That was amazing!“