I Am...The Yuckiest

Both Micah and Grace seem to like music and so I never get voted down when I want to fire up our Mp3 player in our home. Many times it seems like the random shuffling of songs simply provides a soundtrack in the background of our lives, but every now and then Micah pipes up with a comment or randomly breaks into song, revealing that he is at least unconsciously tuning in. I encourage Micah in his singing, not because I expect him to flourish as a vocal artist down the road, but rather because we have a lot of fun and sometimes it's just downright hilarious. You see, this little 3-year-old mind has an ever-increasing store of vocabulary (which I find quite impressive), but when a particular song uses a new word, or if the diction isn't quite clear, Micah's fills in those gaps with whatever makes sense to him.

 

The other night at dinner, Micah started singing for our friend Lumi. He closed his eyes, tipped his head back and, in a very sweet tone, began singing, "I am…I am…" But then, unexpectedly, his eyes opened, and his serious expression cracks into a mischievous smirk, "I am…the yuckiest!" he finishes before busting into a deep belly laugh. Lumi was entirely confused and yet entirely amused. How could a song begin so sweetly only to end with the "yuckiest"? We helped Lumi out by playing the sappy Ben Folds Five love song "I Am The Luckiest" from which Micah derived his version. Originally, Micah thought the song actually said "yuckiest," and now, despite knowing the real word, he much more prefers his version – and it has become his favorite joke to "tell" our guests.

 

His mistakes-turned-into-jokes don't stop here. There is another song we hear occasionally which says "All I…wanna do…" Well, having learned a bit of Spanish from Dora the Explora, Micah was certain the lead singer of Better than Ezra was saying "Hola…" On another occasion, Micah asked his little sister, "Gracey, do you want to rock with daddy in the rocking chair?" and then he broke out into "We will…we will…rock you!" We then joked around about how Queen was originally singing an advertising jingle for an infant day care facility! Micah doesn't limit his parodies to secular music either. When he was a baby, I frequently sang "How Great Thou Art" to him as I would sometimes rock him at night. I'm glad the song rubbed off on him, but I guess my nighttime diction wasn't the greatest, for instead of "Oh Lord my God…" he picked up the lyrics "Oh Lord, Micah…" If the original sin was man wanting to take the place of God, Micah committed it very early in his life.