Little Monkey

Last week my girl and I were singing when she very clearly signed 'tree' and then 'leaf'.  Mother of the year, I had no idea what she wanted & couldn't think of any tree songs she might've picked up at school.  She kept signing them over & over and got increasingly pouty when my guesses fell short.  I'll admit I was wondering a bit - other than in Signing Times, landscaping items don't come up too often in our daily conversations (as anyone can see from my backyard).  What else could she be signing?  On Friday her teachers ran through a couple options and suggested the monkey song.  She looked SO relieved and happy when I asked if that was the tree song.  Jeez, mom, try to keep up!

My monkeys were always jumping on the bed but I guess this is the school of realpolitik:
5 little monkeys, swinging in the tree
Teasing Mr. Crocodile, "Can't catch me!"
Along comes Mr. Crocodile, quiet as can be, and
Snatches! that monkey right out of that tree!
4 little monkeys...

Did anyone else notice there are no LEAVES in this song?  I don't know if they covered this at school, but that is a huge leap, understanding that leaves & trees are part of the same thing. 

Her signing is taking off... she's recently picked up pig, frog (which admittedly looks a lot like 'pig'), bear, mouse, bird, hot, cracker (the last just now because we hardly ever had any in the house-but she learned immediately & with great enthusiasm once given a graham cracker the opportunity), socks, ape (but, oddly, not monkey), and she's pointing to a whole bunch of new body parts.  I still haven't figured out a name sign for her brother though.  I know there is a lot of protocol & sensitivity around the name sign issue but I've exhausted my available resources - Google, Julia, and Matt's one cousin who I've met twice and who hopefully just didn't know who I was so ignored me, or who I heartily offended with my presumptive demanding email.  But she needs to call her brother something and is nowhere near finger spelling yet.  We've been playing around with it a bit but nothing's clicked - in case anyone asks, however, it will be an "adaptive sign" (only).  Tricky business.

Pictures from our singing signing session Tuesday morning:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

MORE songs!

Bonus Mommy Love Picture

Frog?  Pig?  Frig?  Prog?
Old MacDonald, as a Mad Scientist

Bear, adapted.
Or:  Old MacDonald's Farm expands into zoo animals.

Keeping time! 
(Actually I have no idea, but it looks snappy!)