I recognize that there are few things more humiliating than seeing someone wearing your underwear on their head.

That’s why I try not to do it anymore, that is, wear underwear on my head, even though Emma’s is a perfect fit. She doesn’t like it when I do it.

But it is still very tempting.

The girls and I have our own underwear song. I think I started singing it a few years ago. It always surfaced after swim lessons as I helped the girls get dressed.

Without further ado…

The Underwear song (Sung to the tune of the old 1970s (?) Spiderman cartoon.)

Underwear, underwear,
everybody loves underwear.
Some are pink,
Some are blue,
[here’s where you pick a line] Some are cray-zeee, just like you
or
Some are dotty just like you
or
Some are custom made just for you

Alriiiight, let’s hear it for underwear. [big flourish]

– 

I really need a second verse, don’t I? Anyone care to help me compose one?

Songs can change behaviors. If you have a kid in preschool or kindergarten you are probably familiar with their “tidy up” song. Every school has their own, but I bet that at the core they’re all very similar i.e. easy melodies that repeat the words “everybody tidy up” about a dozen times. They wouldn’t teach it to the kids if it didn’t work.

We’re past the tidy up song stage now, but boy, sometimes it echoed in my brain when I was tidying up. Ugh.

When I find myself getting annoyed with the girls, you know, because they are being annoying and I can’t take it anymore, sometimes I suddenly sing out “ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE.” It’s weird, but it actually helps ease the tension, and 99 per cent of the time it will change the underlying (bad) mood and help them shift gears. Sometimes they’ll even reply: “THREE, FOUR, SHUT THE DOOR.”

Whatever works, right?