On playlists and players – music for the young ones (and young once!)

So my 6 year old daughter has an ipod.

I can hear some of you saying “whaaaaaat?”

Now, she’s not allowed to take it to school. And we didn’t buy it for her specifically. She has “inherited” it from her father, who won it as a prize for being a top manager of his former company (he actually won two). Also, the music that’s on it is moderated by both parents. We know what she’s listening to, and that it’s age-appropriate. We uploaded the tunes ourselves. From a wide range of sources really. There are the usual Disney ditties, some Hi-5 favorites, songs from the great musicals (Les Mis, Phantom, Once on this Island, Cats), a few classical and instrumental pieces (mostly for sleepy time), a BoyZone best of album (gasp gasp), and Tagalog classics (can’t go wrong with Ewan and Pumapatak nanaman Ang Ulan!) I also came across these fantastic CDs (go the local library!) that I recommend for anyone with kids. They’re great listening for the young once, too.

Some of my favorite tracks:

• The Rainbow Connection – two versions, by Sarah Mclachlan and Jason Mraz respectively;
• Mahna Mahna (which incidentally, we found out, was originally part of the soundtrack for a pseudo-documentary about wild sexual activity and other behavior in Sweden – BUT P. DOESN’T KNOW THAT AND DOESN’T HAVE TO JUST YET!! ) by Cake;
• la la la la lemon by Barenaked ladies;
• Sing by Ivy;
• a really cool version of Twinkle Twinkle Star by Chantal Krevuziak (remember her from Armageddon??) and Raine Maida;
• I’m different (which P absolutely loves) by Butterfly Boucher;
• Catch the Moon by Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell

…. and heaps more . Highly recommended!

Other songs yet to be uploaded are those from the the Saddle Club Series (”hello world, this is me, life should be fun for everyone”), which P pointedly reminded me of earlier today.

Needless to say, P loves having her own portable music player. All the music she likes is finally in one place (no more riffling through CDs!) And it’s so handy when lugging the kids around in the car – just plug it in and it keeps them occupied throughout the trip.

Seeing P listen to it every night in her bed reminds me so much of myself when I was younger – although as I laughingly told her, I didn’t have an ipod player — back then, I would bring my entire radio set under the covers with me; and for my favorite songs I had to tune into the different FM radio stations, wait hours (sometimes even days!) for the DJ to play the songs I liked, and when they finally made it across the airwaves, had to quickly press the record button so that my cassette tape could capture the song, hopefully in its entirety and without the DJ talking over the first bit.

How times have changed!!

I ain’t complaining though. It’s made it easier for me to share music with my daughter. I’m hoping that by giving her the means to have her own time and space for it, she will grow to love music as much as I do, and that it becomes part and parcel of who she is. Whether or not she inherited her mother’s singing abilities doesn’t matter – as long as we have that common ground between us.

I know music saved me many times growing up as an angry, confused, angst-ridden teenager coming to grips with a father’s terminal disease. When I couldn’t find the words, music became the outlet. I was lucky to be surrounded by it; from classic standards (care of mom and dad) to the music of the 80’s, the 90’s and beyond (care of older siblings, cousins and friends. )

At the moment P’s music, as children’s music goes, is filled with sunshine-y, happy themes of rainbows and flowers and love and unending friendship. As she grows older I know this will change (oh how it may change!), and that some of her musical choices may not be to my liking. But just as I was able to express, and even discover (and re-discover) facets of myself in the different genres and artists and lyrics and musical styles I listened to over the years, so will she. And I hope as that happens she will like who she finds; or at least, even on bad days, still be good friends with whom she meets in the musical middle.

What’s on your playlist today?

If you have any ideas or know of any other songs I can share with P (and S. as he grows older) — please, let me know! I’d love to hear from you.

Monday musings – on playgroups, making friends, and creating space

One of the great things about living in Wellington is the abundance of things to do with the kids, often for a tiny fee (if any.) Winter and its gale-force winds are no deterrent – indoor playgroups, musical sessions and storytimes abound aplenty at libraries, community centres, churches.

I haven’t really had the chance to take my son to any of these. So S and I quickly piled into the van together with my sister and her two youngest kids, and off we went to Monday playgroup.

For the princely sum of 50 cents, we got two solid hours of interactive play, food and drinks for the kids and an inside look at fascinating behaviour – and I don’t just mean the children’s.

S had no problem fitting in and enjoying – the place was a veritable mecca for small people. Think two rooms of open space with sections for different kinds of play – toy kitchens, a slide, mini sandpit, art area, cars and trikes (complete with mini gas-station) – the works. I, however, was flailing. As much as playgroups are for kids to develop their nascent social skills, they were also invented for parents to meet similar folk and have some adult “me” time in the company of friends.

So as the room filled with more parents and their offspring, I cast my eye about for a likely prospect to start a conversation with.

Should I perhaps go over to the Asian moms, who by virtue of former location or ancestry may have more in common with the likes of me? They’re speaking in a language I don’t know and looking like a pretty tight group.

Maybe the moms with toddler sons then? Surely we can compare notes on raising boys. That’d be great, only none of them stay still long enough, running after their brood. I doubt I’d get a word in edgewise.

How about the fathers? They seem a bit lonesome in the corner. But then what if they start thinking I’m hitting on them and their wives find out and then they form a coalition and I’m banned from playgroup even before my playgroup life begins? Aaaargh!

This is bordering on ridiculous. Talk to someone for goodness sake. Surely you can string a sentence together - you interviewed people for a living not so very long ago!

But for the rest of the two hours, I barely talk to anyone else except my sister. Sure I exchange a lot of nods and smiles. Even come close to telling some mom off – her much older son pushed mine down and refused to share a toy, and she pretended it never happened. But the swell of the crowd, the noise, the forms in constant motion make me slightly dizzy and leaning towards agoraphobic, so much so that I long for the quiet of the library just next door.

In my almost three years in NZ, I have not made that many friends. A sobering realisation. But settling in – getting a job, a house, arranging schooling for P, and then finding out soon after we were going to have a Kiwi; and the grind of daily life – the chores, the errands – all that somehow ate into the time for more social endeavors. Any free time was invariably spent with family. And mates at work don’t really count – there’s always internal politics involved, and in the sales environment we operated, there was always competition at play. It’s pretty hard to let your guard down in that sense.

Fortunately for me, I do have family I can call upon. And as one of them so brilliantly puts it, when you make space in your life, something always comes to fill it up.

Choosing to let go of my full time job – especially in these times – was not an easy decision. No doubt people must’ve thought me irrational, crazy even. After all, the earning potential was fantastic. The job, on good days, challenging and interesting enough.

But sometimes the right choices are meant to be made with your heart, not your head. And if it means not only surviving, but actually feeling alive again – well then, there was no real contest.

What’s your heart telling you to do? It may not be something as drastic…but if the message is insistent and strong, it may be worth paying attention to.

(Of course it helps to have the support of those around you – so to my partner in crime J – thanks for the love.)

Til next time.