Catchy tunes

I am well versed in television that is targeted to my offspring, but have only relatively recently begun to explore the music targeted to them. We have just a few kid specific CDs, one from They Might Be Giants that I don’t particularly enjoy, some random CDs that came in a multi-pack, and of course the CD that got us through The Girl’s forth trimester – A nature sounds “Waterfall” CD from Target that sounds almost exactly like radio static with a few birds chirping in the background every once in a while, so you get that you are supposed to be standing right next to a huge waterfall. We listened to that one at full volume so much during The Girl’s first 4 months that it is forever burned in our memory. We only hold onto it to torment The Girl later in life (okay that CD isn’t targeted to kids, but nobody in their right mind would find it to be a soothing sound unless you are an infant accustomed to listening to all of the whooshes, gurgles, and heart sounds inside of the womb).

A few months back we picked up Laurie Berkner’s Buzz Buzz, and Farmer Jason’s Rockin’ In the Forest, and my kids are sold. Not only are they sold, but so am I. I can’t even begin to explain how cool it is to watch my two grooving out with the music. The Girl says “buzz buzz” when she wants to listen to her music, and The Boy demands “Farmer Jason!” I enjoy both CDs, though I’ll admit to being somewhat partial to the Laurie Berkner disc, if only because the songs are a little more sing-able for me. The downside being of course, that I end up humming things like “Little red caboose, little red caboose, chug, chug, chug, Riding behind that, train, train, train, train…smokestack on its back, back, back, back, going down the track, track, track, track…little red caboose behind the train…here comes the little red caboose…” You get the idea! I find myself skipping songs on the CD to get to the songs I like to sing. If I had a functioning CD player in my car right now I am confident that I would be grooving around town and singing along when my children aren’t with me. I used to laugh when people would confess to listening to Raffi CDs in the car, and now I have become one of those people!

You try listening to “There's A Little Wheel A-Turnin' In My Heart” or perhaps “The More We Get Together,” and see if you are immune.

Growing up the only music I can recall listening to was my Mom’s vast collection of Air Supply, Ann Murray, Crystal Gayle, and a few others. I have to say that I am still unable to hear Air Supply without cringing, “Lost in Love” just screams it-is-Saturday-and-we-need-to-clean-the-house to me (I’m not going to link to any Air Supply, I just can’t bring myself to even type those words in the same string in my little Google search bar, so if you are interested do it yourself). I suppose it is possible that we had children’s music from time to time, but certainly not anything like Farmer Jason. I could try to draw conclusions from this, but I think I’d just be stretching. Mostly I just wanted to confess that I am in my thirties and enjoy singing along to kids music! It is okay though, my CD player in the car is in fact broken, so I mostly listen to Cities 97, or MPR, I’m solidly an adult most of the time. Ah Rum, Sum, Sum, Ah, Rum, Sum, Sum, Goolie, Goolie, Goolie, Goolie Goolie, Rum, Sum Sum…