McKenna Singing

I took some video on my cell phone of McKenna singing last night. She was singing "Old McDonald Had A Farm". She is singing really fast. That is her approximation of all the different words. She says mostly the same words over and over, but she says them really fast. I think it makes her feel like she's saying all those words.

In this first video she says something at the very beginning that is supposed to be "eieio" . . .It's "ye ye doh..." Then she goes right into "moo moo here, moo moo here". Then she starts listing other animals. She says them each twice. I think the 2nd one is pig? The 3rd is "neigh neigh here" which is a horse. Daddy laughs with delight (He hopes McKenna does not take it the wrong way). She gets stuck on "neigh...". and then explains she's singing horsey...



This video starts with "moo moo here moo moo here" . . . then "baa baa here". In both videos she only repeats the "moo"animal sound twice so the others are "baa here" then "neigh here.." then "pig here.." then "oink here.." and that's where she gets stuck in this one- on oink...



And in both examples there are inconsistencies, various vowel sounds throw in at different places and vowel inconsistencies within the same word. For instance in the 2nd video she says, "a peg here" and then very nicely pronounces it "pig" when she repeats it.

The fact that we can even figure out what she is saying/singing is huge, a big improvement. We are very proud of her.

It is sobering for us to watch these though because somehow it just becomes more clear... her struggle . . . all of the work left for her to do.

What was also hard was McKenna wanted to see the video of herself. I watched her closely as she watched herself sing. She did not smile watching herself. Her eyebrows came together, her shoulders slumped just a little and she looked really confused. Then she just turned away and distracted herself with a toy.

Of course we praise her. We tell her she is singing so well. That she is awesome. But- she's too smart and self aware to totally believe us. She "knows" she's not where she should be. That's hard.

I think she's unbelievably cute!! I know someday she'll look back at these videos and smile. Someday . . .

Amber