My twins, like all other children I know, love music, especially if they involve corresponding gestures and if they’re repetitive. During long road trips, I can actually entertain them by simply singing to — or with — them. I once sang to them for one hour straight!

I sing to them nursery rhymes (‘Twinkle, twinkle little star’), songs from Mary Poppins (‘Fly A Kite’) and The Sound of Music (‘My Favourite Things’). I sing to them Malay songs (‘Bangao, oh bangao‘), Indonesian songs (‘Naik, Naik ke puncak gunung‘), French songs (‘Frere Jacques‘) and, lately, songs from my childhood that have both English and Tagalog versions (‘Pip, pip the small jeep, pip, pip maliit na jeep‘). I find it amazing how quickly they memorize these songs, no matter what language the songs are sung in.

Here’s a video of them singing ‘My toes, my knees’ in Tagalog and Malay:-

The unseen boy’s voice in the background is RoundBoy’s. And the ho-hum female voice in the foreground belongs to their Mama :)

As my Filipino readers can see (or should I say, hear?), my twins badly need to work on their Tagalog pronunciation! At least, they’re learning some Tagalog…

Here are the lyrics of the original English version of the song:-

My Toes, My Knees
My toes, my knees, my shoulders, my head (3x)
We all clap our hands together.

The Tagalog version goes:-

Paa, tuhod, balikat, ulo (3x)
Magpalakpakan tayo.

And here is my own made-up Malay version:-

Kaki, lutut, bahu, kepala (3x)
Kita tepuk tangan semua.

[NB: Paa and kaki actually mean feet, not toes. They're used in place of the Tagalog and Malay words for toes, respectively, owing to the two-syllable limit.]

Click here to listen to a sound clip [wav format ~948KB] of my twins singing all three versions of the song.

This video was taken in July 2008 at Angsana Bintan Resorts and Spa, using my Nokia N82. It’s such a breeze using the Nokia N82 for recording short videos on the go. My only worry is running out of memory, making me wonder if I should invest in spare memory cards next time.