See the handsome chap on the left with the 70s hairdo?

That, my friends, is my baby brother. I was almost 10 when Callum was born so I’ve always felt more like a psuedo-parent to him than a big sister especially since I spent the first two years of his life at boarding school. When I got back home, I used to love spending time with my wee brother. Alas, Callum being a typical wee boy only liked two things – Toy Story and The Singing Kettle.

For all of you non-Scottish folk out there who are scratching your heads quizzically and asking, “What the hell is The Singing Kettle?” I’LL TELL YOU. It’s a magical show so it is. The Singing Kettle started off as a husband-and-wife double act, acres classier than The Krankies who made it their mission to keep all the traditional rhymes alive. Over the years they drafted in a friend, then their daughter, then they hired someone else to back the team up and they’ve been fairly popular in Scotland ever since. When Callum was wee they had a five minute show on the BBC where they’d sing a song or two and Callum loved this so much that he got the videos which we watched over and over and over and over and over again. And again. We actually went to see the show at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow and Artie picked me to go on stage! I can’t remember what song we were singing but I was holding a frog in a bikini. I would have been 12 or 13 and pretended I hated it but seriously I thought it was amazing.

Thanks to that constant repetition, I now have a humungous backlog of songs that I can sing to my kids and Nairn in particular absolutely loves singing along. Yet, I’ve never introduced them to The Singing Kettle…

…until today. I put the video below onto my laptop and the babies were falling over themselves to jump around my bed dancing. The ironic thing is that I’ve really been struggling for what to get Erica for her birthday and The Singing Kettle is on tour in Scotland over the next couple of months. So, I guess my kids will be getting that Singing Kettle upbringing after all!

This is Nairn’s other favourite

Posted under with the kids