Chimp Chat

Need fun? Sing the Prune Song

I have only received a couple emails from other Hilltop campers after posting about the camp in 2006. One of the great things about camp is that it has given me a fairly large repertoire of songs for singing my little boy to sleep. One song that has eluded me is about prunes. It has driven me crazy, because I remember loving that song, but I couldn't recall the words or the tune. Every time I get an email from a camper, I ask if they remember that song.

Finally, I googled the song online. Here it is:

The Prune Song
No matter how young a prune may be
He's always getting wrinkles
A baby prune is like his dad
But he's not wrinkled half so bad
We have wrinkles on our face
But Pruney has them every place
No matter how young a prune may be
He's always getting stewed

(this part is sung in a high pitched voice)
Little seed inside the prune
Is it night or is it noon?
No matter how young a prune may be
He's always getting wrinkles

List of words

Just for the record, Emmett turned 18 months yesterday.

Here are all the words he uses that we can recognize:
Ball
Bubble
No
Mommy
Don't
Mine
Dog (sounds more like dat)
What

Sounds he uses in place of a word:
Meow (cat... duh)
Oooo-ooo-ooo (accompanied with armpit scratching, indicates monkey)
gak gak (for duck and bird)
pant, pant, pant (for dog)
ooo-ooo (can I have that?)
iiiiaaeeeeyoohooohhyyywooo (I'm not happy with what is happening right now)

He can identify his ear, nose, eye, daddy, Smoochie and some other items.

Provisional renovation with Burlap Coffee Sacks

It was summer 2007 when we discovered that our laundry porch walls and ceiling were sodden, stinky and bug infested. On a whim, we just started pulling down all the dry wall and ripped up the yucky lino floor over the course of a couple weekends while Emmett napped. Then B removed the crusty jalousie windows and put in nice new ones that open and close and don't let critters in. He replaced the outer siding where it was damaged and then put in new insulation.

Then we hit the pause button. We had to use the laundry porch to do our wash, and we didn't have the resources to put up drywall, so we just learned to live with the look of insulation batts, sometimes hanging from the ceiling (which we would poke back up with a broom handle) and the crusty glue covered floor, which we covered with an array of small IKEA rugs. Overall, it was still an improvement... less stink, better light, fewer meaty spiders.

Months ago, I noticed that the coffee shop gives away all their burlap coffee bags, so I took a bunch... and finally, yesterday, we stapled them up on the walls to cover all the unfinished business.

The result is funky. It smells earthy and looks totally unique, but I dig it. It reminds me of the set of M*A*S*H. Or like a roadside cafe in South America, where you might go to find out how to get your hands on a cache of guns -- hey, and while you are there, you do a load of whites!

I want to gussy it up a bit more. Hang art over the burlap or makes some Lucha libre-like masks with papier mache... totally unrelated to the coffee "theme" but it would add color -- plus we don't want there to be a theme.   

Also, we also placed a small table in the room, so I want to paint that Frida Kahlo style (ochre or azul... I can see it in my mind) and put a single piece of durable carpet on the floor (I am digging the $18 indoor/outdoor rugs we bought from Lowe's -- looks like FLOR House Pet in Ferret or Gerbil).

Next, we just need a collection of some sort to display above the windows... like jars of marbles or maybe old washboards.

Anyway, I'll post some pix soon (read: when I get to it, oy!)