Having a kid can be the most trying and exhausting thing in the world, but then there are those little moments that just blow your mind and make you realize just how wonderful it really is. Let me explain:
My two-and-a-half year old daughter was being just about as crabby and disagreeable as she possibly could have been today. She had two timeouts, no TV, and plenty of little conversations that went like this:
Hailey: Please…
Mom & Dad: No. Maybe if you stop whining.
Hailey: NOOO!
Mom & Dad: Exactly.
Hailey: PLEEEAASSE!!
Mom & Dad: No.
Hailey: Why?
Mom & Dad: Because we said so.
Hailey: NOOO! Why?
…and on and on and on. But then we went to pick up a gallon of milk from the grocery store before bedtime.
I put the iPod on shuffle instead of the usual kids fare we listen to when Hailey is in the car (one can only take so much “Boom De-Ray”) and Lucero came on first. Something off That Much Further West I think and then Band Of Horses “Cigarettes, Wedding Bands.”
Nothing out of the ordinary until we hear Hailey (from the back seat) say, “I want the ghost in my house song.” Amy asked her again since we weren’t sure and she repeated, “I want ghost in my house.” I could not believe what I was hearing. WTF?
For those who might not know, the song Hailey was asking for was “Is There A Ghost?” also by Band Of Horses. (This is in addition to requesting “phone dance” last weekend, which is “Young Folks” from Peter, Bjorn, and John since I’ve got the intro set as my ringtone.) She is two-and-a-half.
I’m not sure if kids Hailey’s age are supposed to be able to make these sort of connections, but she did. Holy shit she’s growing up fast.
MP3 | Ghost In My House Song
MP3 | Phone Dance
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My nephew is the same age, and also does what Hailey does when listening to my ipod. He calls MGMT’s “Time To Pretend” ‘the fishie song’, because of the bubbly sounds right at the beginning before the opening notes kick in. He says it sounds like the fish tank filter. He does know it’s real name though – when my sister was hunting for ‘the fishie song’ on her ipod one day she couldn’t remember its real name, and muttered to herself “What’s it called?!” My nephew replied ‘Time To Pretend, Mum! Time To Pretend.” Kids are clever and surprising, and we should never underestimate their awesomeness! Great story about Hailey, loved it.
Hahaha, awesome. My niece is going to turn two in a few months and is such a fireball, always running everywhere and grabbing whatever she can get her hands on. I can’t wait to brainwash her with awesome music.
PS. Can you upload that “Phone Dance” ringtone? Been meaning to look for something new to answer my phone to
Great story and you are right – kids can bring about exhaustion and true exasperation as well as exhiliration and true amazement. When our now 5 yr old Zain was 3 years old, his favorite book was “I Stink” which is a great book to notice the actual words, since the text is so graphic and jumps off the page: rrRROOOAARRrr! Zain even started to notice the punctuation and learned to recognize periods and exclamation points. We lived on a cul-de-sac at the end of a long straight street. So one day we are taking an extra lap around the cul-de-sac for fun before we turn in the driveway and Zain says: “Papa we’re on the period of the exclamation point.”
Took me a minute to figure out what he meant, when I did my jaw dropped…
Sometimes I wish my dog would ask to listen to good music. Instead, when we’re in the car he just farts a lot.
Well, my 7-year old sings along to High Five Anxiety word for word, except for the few f-bombs which he insightfully skips. Same to most of Chris’ Larry Arms songs (who the hell knows what Brendan is ever saying). I’m probably a bad dad for that but at least he’ll have a reasonable foundation of good musical taste.
my kids 4+7 love whatever i’m listening to…
start em off with songs with animals in the titles…
i think i smell a rat
gold lion
etc
stuff they can relate to… i’ve got a whole playlist i can put on in the car that i don’t mind listening to that gets em singing along… sure beats nursery rhymes or whatever terrifying rnb they are listening to at school…