A couple of my high school friends that we saw during our Christmas visit to Arizona showed off their mad parenting skillz by bragging how their (super cute) boys had been so effectively acculturated by the consistent application of the 80s music station during car drives that they were now pushing their parents to get tickets to the 3-D U2 movie. Awesome. During Jim's stay-at-home dad quarter, he signed us up for XM radio, which has its own delightfully endless supply of 80s hits, 90s hits, and of course, Snoop Dogg's classic rap and hip hop, making it possible to relive high school, college, grad school, and all the weird in-between times.
Just as an aside, has anyone noticed how you can hear old songs that you expressly didn't like, or would have considered not even on your radar, yet when it comes on the radio (or, the satellite radio), you not only know every word, but you even know every annoying grace note and dramatic modulation? Ah, the spongy mind of youth. Why didn't you soak up something more useful?
Naturally, staying home with a nearly three year old (and a six month old!) has an entirely different soundtrack from some of the other lives I've led. Naomi got some cool new music for Christmas, including a Justin Roberts CD and another, called "Mary Had a Little Amp," (thanks, Tudes!) which includes a Dixie Chicks cover of "Rainbow Connection" that actually brings tears to my eyes. The tot does not seem that emotionally affected by it...
The two disks hogging the air time this week- Ella Jenkins' multi-culti kid songs (C & B, thanks!), and Laurie Berkner's "Buzz Buzz" (shout out to Pearl for recommending that one!). I should mention that my other friend C. bought me the Ella Jenkins album on...wait for it...cassette tape, back when I was the world's worst preschool teacher. I made the kids learn Swahili songs, before getting myself escorted from the building for distributing to the other teachers the photocopies I had made regarding mandatory overtime laws (which the school owners were, um, flouting). Workers, rise up!
Anyhoo, Ella's back and she's better than ever. Naomi looooves the "Mexican Hand Clapping Song" and this other Spanish chant that includes a whispered "Chickie-cha, chickie-cha, chickie-cha" or something. She walks around the house chickie-cha-ing in a stage whisper, which was really confusing to Jim for a few days. The new Ella-related hilarity is that Naomi has started to sing "The Dredel Song," although she has no idea what any of the words are, including...dredel. She says, "Is it 'Cradle, cradle, cradle, I'm giving it away?'" Hee.
On the Laurie Berkner CD, she likes to speculate how the many many songs might be related to each other. For example, when she hears the "Clean It Up" song, she opines that they are likely cleaning up the big old messy mess that happened as a result of the "I'm a Mess" song. Makes sense. What doesn't make sense is why Laurie felt compelled to include "The Erie Canal," and why, somehow, I know that song. Did you guys also learn this song for some reason, when you were kids? Because I know it, but- how, why? Anyway, Naomi was of course fearlessly singing some combination of words that approximate the sounds of the actual lyrics of this song, and because someone made me learn this anachronistic ditty, by goodness, I'm going to force it on my toddler too. That's not really what I was thinking. I don't know what I was thinking. But by the end of the day, and my four hundredth retelling of what a mule is, what the Erie Canal was, how canal boats work, where New York is, and so forth, we were looking at historical postcard lithograph something-or-others on the internet, depicting horses (mules?) pulling boats, low bridges, the whole 15 miles. Sheesh.
Lest anyone get the idea that I am not also training Naomi in right, we DO also listen to the XM 80s station, usually around dinner-cooking time (although with our meal, we switch down to the 40s or "High Standards"). And last week I dug out my old "Full Moon Fever" CD to play her a Tom Petty song that is one of our favorite lullabies. It happened that Tom Petty was enjoying a big week on XM radio and on PBS (did he have a birthday or something?), and after my initial instruction, Naomi now confidently informs her dad that Tom Petty is a rocker. Of course he is.
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4 comments:
Hey - I remembered why you're hearing so much Tom Petty these days. He's playing during halftime of the Super Bowl!
-liz
The morning after this post, I heard someone on the radio reveal this very fact. Duh. Guess I'm a little out of touch.
I don't think you were the World's Worst Preschool teacher so much as you were a teacher at the World's Worst Preschool.
We went through a Laurie Berkner phase that drove me nuts. We're past that, now, thankfully, and T. will accept my Johnny Cash CDs and L. happily listen to Scott's reggae. Whew.
P.S. How ARE you? I've been meaning to e-mail you--will do so soon.
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