Ada's suddenly into playground rhyming/clapping games. Being an adult of my time, that didn't immediately spur me to share with her the few routines I remembered from my youth. No, I went straight online to see if there was a comprehensive video reference guide to playground clapping games. And of course there is at least one. Being a child of her time, Ada had the same thought. "Let's look for other rhymes on your computer!"
Luckily, I distracted her and checked the site out first. The best one that I found is wonderful, but also, as Ada would put it, inappropriate. At least for a seven year old. While we might be able to deal with:
Girls are sexy made out of Pepsi
Boys are rotten, made out of cotton
Girls go to Mars to get more bras
Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider
I'm not so sure about:
Mary had a little lamb
She also had a duck
she took him round the corner
and taught him how to . . .
fry an egg for breakfast
fry your eggs for tea
the more you eat
the more drink
the more you want to . . .
Peter had a boat
the boat began to rock
out jumped Jaws
and bit him on the . . .
cocktail, ginger ale, forty cents a glass
and so on.
As it happens, I grew up near where the Opies, those great child folklorists, lived and many of the songs and chants they collected survived in the playgrounds in which I played. But I don't remember them publishing material that pushed adult buttons to that degree.
If anyone knows of a video reference that's a little more . . . appropriate, please let me know.