Singing Fast

I am super surprised at how fast Salma learns new words and songs! I guess it's about time anyway huh? Since she was roundabout 10-11 months old, she used to call her little Elmo doll "baby" (now she is 15 months old). She didn't know who or what Elmo was yet, so even though we tried telling her that it was "Elmo", she still kept calling him "baby". Then yesterday, she totally took me by surprised when she reached for her Elmo doll, and said, "Elmo," and proceeded to kiss him (as she does with all her stuffed animals). Then she asked mummy to kiss Elmo too. "Mummy kish Elmo." So I did. I was so excited, I sms'd my husband immediately to tell him.

Then this morning she said "Winnie the Pooh". She has never been able to pronounce "Winnie the Pooh" properly in its entirety before. But she pronounced it perfectly as she sang the Winnie the Pooh song that I taught her (that I sort of made up to fill the melody of the old Winnie the Pooh series theme song that I grew up listening to). She knows how to say "Winnie the Pooh" but I'm not sure if she knows who he is, even though she has a Pooh bear stuffed toy, too. And a Tigger. She calls Tigger "Meow rarrr" for now. The "rarr" is to emphasize that he's a tiger.

My husband made me a Bleach anime theme song cd to play in the car about 6 months back. Maybe even longer than 6 months back. At first, Salma used to only like this song called "Shoujo S" by SCANDAL, and I used to have to play it on repeat so that she wouldn't complain during traffic jams. Then slowly, without me noticing, she suddenly began to sing the first few words of the next song when the current song has ended. And I guess because we speak English at home, and because her teachers speak English in school, she recognized the next song on the cd after "Shoujo S" starts off in English ("Life is Like a Boat" by Rie Fu), so she began to sing along to that song as it played. It's really cute when Salma sings the opening words "Nobody knows..." as "nodody know" hehe.

At first I thought she only knew how to sing the English parts, but then she starting singing the Japanese parts. And even the rap parts she'd sing. Of course, not perfectly, but she tries her best. She recognizes the word "Arigato" and she says it as "aaahgato". Her next favorite song is "Kansha" by RSP, which is also one of my favorites. I think it only became her favorite because I used to play it on repeat in the car.

Now I think she makes up songs to sing. She really likes to sing. I wouldn't be surprised if later in life singing becomes one of her afterschool activities. :)