Bart and I keep having conversations that end in “we should put that on the blog”.

While many of those stories are funny to us, they’re not all “stories” (and some are oldies but goodies), so I thought I’d capture all in one For Placement Only post. Here goes.

• Frère Jacques – while it’s now actually Frère Jacques with both french & english verses, it used to be “Very very ah-ka, very very ah-ka, dor-may food, dor-may food” (and Old McDonald used to be “Old Bean Donald”).
  
• Bubloon  – remarkably consistent Zoe-speak for balloon, and she loves bubloons.
• “Ganks” or “Gank You” – unless you listen closely, you might hear “Thanks”, but this is what I hear
• Baca – Zoe’s first word for “bread” – we have NO IDEA where it came from, but Bart started repeating it back to her and/or asking her if she “wanted some baca”, and so it stuck.
• Amazing Grace – for some reason Bart sung this to Zoe one night and then she started requesting it; while it’s a wonderful song, apparently Bart doesn’t actually remember the words to the second verse, so when I sang it to her, she corrected me (FYI, I do know the words), so I told her I’ll just keep repeating the first verse. She and Dad can keep their homemade 2nd verse ;) Oh, and who knew it was “saved a WRENCH like me” and “I once was BLOND” in the first verse (just ask her).
• Shower Time – early on we realized we’d have to coax her to start the night-night ritual, which begins with a shower (or sometimes a bath); regardless, we sing “Bow-now-now-now, bow-now, bow-now, Shower Time!” to the tune of “Can’t Touch This” as we dance our way into the bathroom. It works 95% of the time ;)
• Marshpillows – Zoe had an obsession with marshmallows (as does her mother) and calls them marshpillows

Pretty soon, all of the above will go away. She’s learning her letters and their sounds – and if you have a toddler or niece/nephew who’s learning letters, I highly recommend what my sister sent me: LeapFrog Letter Factory. Sure, after 10 times in a row it gets annoying, but it’s AMAZING how quickly Zoe has learned her letters and sounds in the past couple of weeks.

We’re now moving on to the next video in the kit, the Talking Words Factory. Pretty soon, I think she’ll be reading words, and I’m not kidding. Poor Daddy. No more fudging the words in night-night books. Actually my husband is smart, so pretty soon, I bet he’ll have her reading to him ;)

Any tips for helping new readers? We’re all ears!