turn up the music

I will admit - I have never been a music lover. But I can appreciate a good song when I hear it judging from the way it makes me move. I don't want my lack of musical interest to pass on to Ava - so it takes quite an effort to remember to play it around her, or in this case, extreme desperation to keep her from wanting to watch TV. "Mommy broke the TV last night. We have to wait and fix it," I told her. We went back and forth until she very maturely accepted the idea that Mommy could not "fix the tv."

I asked her if she wanted me to play some music instead. She agreed. The first cd was a mix of Indian dance music. She loved it and I didn't see or hear from her for quite a while. During that time, there was chaos all over me in the kitchen - the usual when it comes to preparing lunch for 3. I was dipping and coating her chicken and thinking about work when the disc changer played WeeSing & Learn ABC - from the book set that uses letters of the alphabet to show animals playing musical instruments. "Abe the alligator plays the accordion."

That broke my trance and so I decided to peek around the corner to see what Ava was up to. And that's when - I melted.

There was my Ava with her music book in her lap following along. How did she remember that there was a book to the cd? It had probably been a year or so since we last went through it together.

I rushed over to Aaron to tell him what she was doing, and he said to me, "This is why people have more kids." Of course it is. They do things that pull at our hearts, stop us in our tracks, and even change us completely.

We listened to music all day - and even danced around the living room to burn off some energy. I can see this quickly becoming a family favorite thing to do.

Music in our disc changer:

1. WeeSing & Learn ABC [look for it at Half Price Books]
2. Afghan dance music [Ahmed Zahir and others]
3. Indian dance music [songs from the movie Taal, Chama-Chama, Bumbaro...]
4. Norah Jones [Come Away With Me CD]