Dance, Angel, Dance

The little angel can dance.  True, she doesn't possess much coordination, but she already knows as many steps as many adult white men.  She can bend her knees and sort of bob up and down, and she can do the sprinkler.  I have caught her doing this several times in the past week.  Shake, shake, bounce, bounce, swat, swat, bounce.  This is so cute you could almost throw up when she is wearing her new piggy tails.

I have a confession to make, though:  She's not dancing to kiddie music.  I LOATHE kiddie music.  I know some wonderful parents who have Wiggles CDs in their cars.  Can't do it.  I have resisted buying Dora the Explorer videos under the pretense that the American Association of Pediatriacs says children do not need videos until they are two (and it's actually not that THEY need them after two, but that their parents do).  I know we will have to break down eventually, but I have seen Dora videos. Have you?  Really annoying music.  Baby Einstein, people, at least features classical music, much like Warner Brothers cartoons. See a connection?  The parents.  The parents can't stand the noise.

We do have a few CDs of kids music sung by people like Sarah McLaughlin and the BareNaked Ladies, but I can't find them right now. I have repressed where I put them, and all the rest of our CDs are languishing in the basement, since we are iPod junkies and can run our downstairs stereo through the computer.  What do we listen to in the car?  Yes, folks, my iPod. 

Now, I'm not horrible. I purposely never download the "X-rated" version of any song.  And I DO hit "skip" when Eminem or Metallica comes on.  But really, what's the harm of a little Beatles or Counting Crows in the little angel's life?  Doesn't she need Madonna, too?  I remember growing up to Johnnie or however you spell her name, gospel music and very loud NPR (my father's car).  I don't think any of those are particularly attractive to children, but it wasn't that big of a deal.  I had my books and stuffed animals with whom to grouse about the radio selection.  I didn't really know any different. And there were always those books-with-tapes to listen to when I was playing in the house.  In the car, though, we didn't get to control the radio until we were teenagers and my parents were trying to humor us until we left the house. 

I personally think we parents should at least take back the car radio.  We've already given the children our houses, our bank accounts and everything in the car from the driver's section back.  The little angel doesn't even mind.  She listens to kiddie music AND gospel music all day at the Emerald City (have I mentioned the Emerald City is a church?  She will even go to chapel when she is three.  How handy).  She told me the other day that she thinks the whole kid-music market is a bit bourgeois, anyway.  And it's so much cuter when she shakes her diapered booty to "Mrs. Robinson. "