Singing Rooms

Abe gets embarrassed when I actually come in to watch him sing.  Apparantly it doesn't bother him that I can HEAR him, but when I come close, he ducks into the bathroom and waits till I withdraw before continuing.

The boys love to march around the house and sing songs, many of their own composition.  They've worked out a system so they can do it without bothering each other (they each have a designated "singing room" they have to stay in) and they switch from song to song with "beep!"s and an imaginary high-voiced audience saying, "Can we do that song again one more time?" after which they begin again.  Ky sometimes sings himself, and sometimes provides a non-imaginary audience for his brothers.

The songs are distressingly catchy.  Such as
"Bears and Monkeys flying around,
Bears and Monkeys flying around,
Bears and Monkeys flying around
And one flew by my door."
or
"The twelve days of Monkey Christmas."
or,
Sometimes the songs are lengthy stories about things that they did or will do. 

When everyone is singing it gets very LOUD in here.  The boys know that stomping and clapping and banging on things provides percussive effects.  I usually have to step in to quiet the singing and stomping when it reaches fever pitch.

I suppose I must admit here that I can clearly remember playing outside when I was maybe 8 or so, and pretending I was an orphan that had just received a letter saying I was going to be adopted---and I was singing a song I made up about this----"The letterrrrrrr, that will change my liiiiiiife . . ."----when my brother Philip suddenly appeared gleefully out of a bush and I was mortified that he had heard me.

Although if you are going to play melodramatic things like that I suppose you really can't complain when people snatch your "letter" and dance around clasping it to their bosom and imitating your song.  And you also can't complain when your children inherit your nerdy songwriting tendencies.