My Little Irish Rose

Now that K.'s approaching what I like to call the "pre-preschool age," I've been looking around at the various options we have here in the northern Virginia area.  I'm a bit daunted by the talk of waiting lists and (in some rare cases) interviews (!) that are required as part of the application process.  

Amid all this talk, my husband and I often say that maybe the best preschool K. could ever have is what he has already with his grandma 1-2 times per week.  My mother in law lives about 10 minutes away from us, and I take K. there on Tuesdays, when I work downtown, as well as on many Fridays for a wonderful "Mom's Day Out" sort of thing.  

Well, the last time I came to pick him up imagine my surprise when she showed me how she taught him the words to a song!  And not just any song, mind you.  

They sang it together, my MIL singing and K. following along, missing lots of the pronunciations, of course, but doing his very best, and it made my heart just melt:

I've got rings on my fingers

Bells on my toes

Elephants to ride upon

My little Irish rose;

So, come to your nabob

And next St. Patrick's Day

Be Mrs. Mumbo Jumbo Jijiboo O'Shea!

It was an old Irish children's song I'd never heard before, but I looked it up when I got home and here's the scoop, thanks to a Yahoo! message board:

"'I've Got Rings on My Fingers' is a popular song written in 1909, words by Weston and Barnes, and music by Maurice Scott.  It concerns an Irishman named Jim O'Shea, a castaway who finds himself on an island somewhere in the East Indies, whereupon he is made a king by the natives who like his red hair and his Irish smile, and they dub him 'Jijiboo Jhai.'  He then sends a letter to his girlfriend, Rose McGee, imploring her to join him."

Hearing K. attempt, in his tiny high-pitched voice, "Mrs. Mumbo Jumbo Jijiboo O'Shea" just kills me, it is so precious.  

My goal, now that I know the chorus, is to practice this little ditty with him so that we can videotape K. singing it for St. Patrick's Day!