Lickety Split

In my house, there is a lot of singing and dancing. Despite good advice by friends and my insurance agent, I too participate in the ongoing musical that is life in my home. I've been typecast as father, but have been known to play other roles such as Tickle Dog and Woogie from Something About Mary. And given my overall positive and humorous outlook on life, there is always something to sing about.

My wife and I try, sometimes unintentionally, to turn a word or phrase into song. I've lost count of how many times I have belted out instructions for the bedtime routine in my best tenor voice. My attempted soprano is bad enough to actually expedite bedtime routines and end otherwise perfect afternoons. If the kids knew the phrase "That's an hour of playtime I'll never get back," they certainly would have used it a million times by now. I also learned quickly that singing "Do you want a timeout? (I know you do!)" to the melody of Bob the Builder isn't nearly as effective as I hoped. However when we sing "Let's Go Lickety Split!", a phrase used to imply the need for great haste, the kids laugh and laugh as they pick up their pace.

My wife and I also catch ourselves singing our conversation to each other, even when the kids are in another room. We sing our conversation.

"How was your day?" I might sing.

"Please stop singing!" she might sing back.

"Do you want a timeout? (I know you do!)" I would conclude.

It's also very normal for us to take a normal phrase and make a silly song by truncating the words and making our own version of a remix. For example, "Zippity Do Da" might easily become "Zip it, Zip it! Do it! Do it! Zip Zip Zip it! Do it and Zip it!" This play with words is almost always safe with the kids, however recently my wife suddenly transformed a g-rated activity into a x-rated one when she tried to apply the word shortening and "It" appending game on the otherwise harmless phrase "Lickety Split". Go ahead, try it.