baby faves

songs i find myself singing all the time:

who’s my pretty baby by elizabeth mitchell and/or woody guthrie–this one lends itself to all sorts of improvisation like “who’s my stinky baby?” and “who’s my funny baby?” etc. and is a wonderful all-purpose song

the big ship sails on the alley alley oh by kate rusby and i think someone else too (it’s a traditional song) but i can’t remember who–really, really not sure why this song has been going around in my head, but it pops out all the time.

island hop by caspar babypants–because this one starts off with “baby, baby, baby” i’ve been singing it “baby, baby, gaby” just for fun.

favorite books so far: 

everywhere babies by susan meyers and marla frazee–has beautiful rhythm, meaning and illustrations that portray so many different kinds of families!  plus, later when attention spans get shorter, we can just read the big words on the page and skip the smaller ones.

haiku baby by betsy e. snyder–i bought this one awhile back at frugal muse intending to gift it to someone probably, but the illustrations had me hooked and i decided to keep it.  i’m so glad!  i still love the illustrations and the little haikus on each page are a gentle read for little baby ears.  it cracks me up that the winter one is about a hippo in the snow.  do hippos ever experience snow?  except maybe in a wisconsin zoo?  my favorite poem is the one called “flower:”

“in tickly-toe grass;

a buttercup offers up

yellow nose kisses”

snoozers by sandra boynton–this one came to us in a box of used books from a friend.  i just assumed it was a collection of other boynton favorites, but it’s not!  it’s all original stuff and is hilarious.  each 2-page spread is a different “chapter” which might be nice for skipping around later in life and also has wonderful rhythm and humor (but then again, don’t all of her books?  isn’t that why we LOVE them?).

the funny thing is that at work, i generally am not all that fond of rhyming books (for the preschool set i often find them distracting, especially when the meter is off or when the author tries so hard to make the rhyme that it’s difficult to understand what they’re trying to say) and i steer clear of “gentle reads” preferring funny ones, but that’s because i’ve always believed that gentle reads are better for “lap-reading” than for storytimes.  it’s nice to finally have the opportunity to appreciate them for their intended purpose!  the happy baby may not understand the humor in these books yet and he may not appreciate the pictures, but i know that he loves listening to the lilting rhythms and the sound of our voices.  i love singing and reading to this boy!