The lion sleeps tonight

Last fall, when Sacha was having such a rough time at school, Apa started coming over with fun music and videos to dance to. It worked like a charm on Sunday nights, when we started our dinners with family dance parties!

One of Apa's offerings became an instant family hit. It featured an animated hippo singing "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," accompanied by a dancing dog. Along with another favorite, about a singing gummy bear, the kids started asking for the singing hippo every time Apa came over. At first, it was an occasional thing, but, for our daughter, it soon became an obsession.

For the past several weeks, Tali has wanted nothing more than the hippo song. "Hitto son(g)! Hitto son!" she says, over and over and over. She spent a good chunk of our Arizona vacation begging for "Hitto son! Hitto son!" to various family members. She now associates Apa most of all with the hippo song and almost loses her mind begging for it when he walks through the door. It is the funniest thing ever. Ever. Well, that and the little dances she sometimes does when we relent and show her the video.

Her favorite part of the video is when dog pats its own bottom for a few seconds during its dance routine, and so that's the part she likes to imitate herself. "Hitto son! (furiously pats her own rear) Hitto son! (more patting)" Sometimes she does more of a song and dance after that, and sometimes she just likes to be held so she can admire the musical stylings of the animated hippo. You would fall over laughing if you could see any part of this. However, in the interests of her speaking to me when she's 13 and reading through our blog archives, I won't show any photographic evidence!

I love the random things kids come up with to be obsessed with, and I have to say that this is one of my favorite random kid obsessions so far. Bring on the hippo song!