2nd Quarter 2012: Increasing Happiness

        When I was a kid in Kindergarten, our teacher gathered us daily into a singing circle on the floor where we would belt out songs with unabashed delight and conviction; not always on tune.  Songs come to mind like “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”, “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes,” “Bingo,” “I’m a Little Teapot,” “Pop Goes the Weasel,” “Wheels on the Bus,” “Down by the Station,” “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “Mickey Mouse Club Anthem,” “Old MacDonald Had A Farm,” “The Farmer in the Dell,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” “Yankee Doodle,” “Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “Six Little Ducks,” “Hokey Pokey,” “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “Jingle Bells,” “This Little Light of Mine,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” “This Old Man,” “Skip To My Lou,” and everyone’s favorite, “Birthday Song” because cupcakes followed.  We really piped up and had lots of fun singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” with which our teacher usually ended the songfest as we ran outside humming gleefully to recess.