Battle of the Bands: How to Raise a Texasotan

Every morning Charlotte asks to hear music on the way to Montessori.  Specifically she asks to hear James McMurtry.  If the radio is on Charlotte will say, "I don't want to hear Mommy's music.  I want to hear Daddy's music.  I want to hear James McMurtry."  Truth be told, I would love to move on from these CDs but I am always going to indulge Charlotte in this context.

And then she will ask what every song is about which is illuminating in that pretty much every song that dude sings is tinged with some cocktail of unrest, depression, and emptiness.  Welcome to life Charlotte.

But Charlotte is getting a healthy dose of Music Appreciation 101 from Emily as well.  Friday night Charlotte was dancing to Prince on Emily's iPod.  Later that evening right around bedtime, Charlotte told me out of the blue, "I like Prince.  He makes me happy."  The ying to the erudite Mr. McMurtry's yang.

And then at dinner tonight we had The Current local show playing in the background and some upbeat song with a distinct Minneapolis sound/beat was going on and Charlotte lit up and said, "This is Prince!"  It wasn't, but she picked up on the familiar bass line and well, what can I say, she is going to be a Minneapolis girl through and through.

And this is a good thing.

Overheard, Exhibit M

Charlotte's favorite book of the moment is Two Bad Ants, which I am lucky enough to have an autographed copy of (thanks Suze!) which is a small treasure.  Charlotte loves so many little snippets here and there about the book, that it has become one of my favorite books to read to her too.

So today as we were driving home from the hospital, Charlotte broke out this song, sung to the tune of Three Blind Mice.

"Two brown mice.  Two brown mice.
Two bad mice.  Two bad mice.
Two bad ants.  Two bad ants.
Two brown ants.  Two brown ants."

And that went on for about five minutes, just her randomly combining bad and brown with mice and ants.  A song only a parent could love.

Mr. Al

While I was cooking dinner tonight Charlotte was in the other room with Emily playing with bristle blocks. Every two minutes or so she would run into the kitchen to show me what she made.  It was your typical toddler creations, a boat and then a train.  But then she came running in and said she made "Mr. Al with a guitar.  He's gonna sing Baby Beluga."

Mr. Al is one of Charlotte's preschool teachers.  He is really into music.  When I drop Charlotte off, we are one of the first arrivers and Mr. Al is just getting started for the day.  He always has some sort of  music on his boom box, and his choices range from Bob Dylan to jazz to blues to classical.  When Emily drops Charlotte off it is usually two hours later than I do so Mr. Al is in full swing with his lessons for the kid.  Emily says he is typically either singing to them or doing a lesson centered around music.  Oh yeah, and he loves Charlotte.

And lately Charlotte has really taken to Mr. Al.  She made the bristle block Mr. Al before dinner and then just before bedtime, she made another Mr. Al.  And then she turned it into a Mr. Al Tower (whatever that is), before reconstructing back to Mr. Al.

Here isa picture of Charlotte just before I turned out the light.  She has her blankets, pacifiers, doll tucked in.... and those orange, green, and yellow bristle blocks would be Mr. Al.  She insisted he join her in the crib tonight.  But she told me he did not need to be tucked in .  "He has a polka dot blanket."  I think she was referring the bumps on the bristle blocks, but your guess is as good as mine.

Conversation with Charlotte #61328

A little snippet of a conversation I had with Charlotte after she woke up from her nap this afternoon.

Boomtown

Over the past month Charlotte has become more and more expressive with her music.  I don't know much about toddler music development. or much about music at all.  But her music boon seems exactly the same as the language jump all toddlers make.  Right before our eyes, and almost out of the blue to my amateur ears, Charlotte is making up tunes and singing songs to us she learned at Montessori or even pulling out songs she remembers from months ago at her Music Together class.  And now instead of babbling away about who knows what, she is often singing away about who knows what.

A week ago the most she would do is finish a word or two from the line of a familiar song I would sing to her.  And now, over the last two days, she started singing whole, multiple lines of songs on her own, like the one about the spider and the water spout and You Are My Sunshine.  It's all very fun and she gets pretty excited when she starts a song up on her own and I can figure it out and sing along with her.

Here is kind of a weird video from bedtime five days ago where she is making up one her songs from scratch.  She did this routine where she would sing with the blanket over her head, let it slowly fall off, and then ask me to throw it on her head again.  This cycle went on for about five minutes and would have kept going on if she had her way, but it was time for bed.

This is What it Sounds Like

Last month, I went too see Princess, Maya Rudolph's Prince tribute band, at First Avenue.  I went with the biggest Prince fan I know, my friend Miriam, and my sister, Jessica.

Me, Miriam, and Jessica at First Ave

Princess on stage

Before you laugh, Princess is not a comedy act, but a genuine tribute to the Purple One (by the way, my friend, Rachel, says that sincerity is the new irony).  For a couple weeks before the concert I was listening to some classic 80's Prince in the car - Controversy, Purple Rain, Sign of the Times.  I was looking forward to the concert and I figured listening to loud Prince music in the car is good for babies.   I need to indoctrinate Charlotte and her future baby sister.  Of course, listening to loud Prince music in the car goes hand in hand with singing really loud in the car.   Fun for me, and hopefully setting a good example for Charlotte - don't be afraid to let go and be yourself!  So, yesterday we were driving to Easter dinner at our friend's house and Purple Rain was playing in the car while Mike and I were busy talking about something.  We could hear Charlotte singing in the back, and Mike asked if I knew what she was singing.  I listened carefully and she was singing the chorus of Purple Rain in a cute little voice.  I felt a surge of motherly pride.  Then on the way home she was singing again and I said, "oh!  I think I know what she is singing!"  She was singing The Beautiful Ones, a song that is particularly fun to sing in the car.  Here is a video of Princess singing The Beautiful Ones, fast forward to about 1:49 and watch to the end, you will see why it feels so good to belt this one out. You also will see what a bad ass Maya Rudolph as a pregnant performer.  It was inspiring.

Procrastination

We have a deck that needs to be refinished.  I have a power washer to get what's left of the old finish off before applying the new finish.  But before I can attach the hose to the power washer there is this trigger nozzle of the end of the hose that might be rusted on.  Either way I can't get it off, so I can't power wash.  I will persevere but not at my present level of annoyance.  I chose to "take a break" so as to keep myself from getting so frustrated at the situation that I would end up thinking that taking an axe to the hose, the deck, and then the world would be an appropriate solution.

So I thought I'd work on editing some Youtube videos I have of Charlotte instead.  Only problem being I can't get the video editor to work on Youtube on this old laptop, even though Emily says it can be done.  I'd use my work laptop but the mousepad is not working right now.  I am beginning to think taking an axe to these laptops, Youtube's home office, and then the world is an appropriate solution. 

Sorry but for now I can't edit this video (and another that one that goes with it that I won't post).  Below is a video of Charlotte looking at the London Bridges Falling Down nursery rhyme in her Richard Scarry Mother Goose book.  She now requests Mother Goose books by name.  If she wants a specific book, she'll just say "book?" over and over until she finds the one she wants, unless she is looking for a Mother Goose book.  Then she'll "Goose?" over and over and really seems quite satisfied once she finds one of the four Mother Goose books she has available to her.

This video is from a few days ago, right after breakfast (hence the "just out of bed" look she is sporting).  Charlotte was leafing through the pages and ended up here and I swear she is singing (or at least trying to sing) "London Bridges Falling Down" complete with a dance number.  That is like the first 50 seconds.  I would have edited out the rest.  But if you want to watch her crawl up to me and well, that's about it, feel free to watch the rest of the video.

Musical

Charlotte loves music.  She does a little bouncy dance and waves her arms in the air like she just don't care.   Here she is showing off with her pitch pipe and her new drum.  

    

Today in Music Class

Baby Music

My sister, Jessica, teaches Music Together so we signed up for her class.  It's music class for babies and families.  Last night was the first class and Charlotte had the highest adult:child ratio (4:1).   My sister is a fabulous teacher and the class was a lot of fun.

My sister, Jessica, showing us how to make music.

Here we are singing a song with some eggs that you shake.

We're singing to Charlotte and shaking our eggs at her.

Now Jessie is shaking her egg at Charlotte.

A quiet song at the end of the class.