Before Rosalie was born, Leanne and I discussed the music our baby would listen to. Leanne wanted her to listen to softer, classical songs. I wanted to raise her right and teach her about grunge and alternative rock, with bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Sound Garden. Leanne wasn’t a fan of that idea. Early after Rosalie was born, we did compromise for a trip back home and I got to play the lullaby versions of Nirvana songs.
But when Mommy isn’t around, she doesn’t have a say in what I play in my car. When Rosalie is in the car with me, I keep the volume low but still have on the SiriusXM station, Lithium. Lithium, named after the Nirvana song, is a 90’s Grunge/Alt/Rock station. They play songs from bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Sound Garden. They also play songs that you’ve heard of, but can’t remember who performed it.
Back this past Spring, I would take Rosalie to daycare, while most likely listening to Lithium. For the most part, she’d just sit there without any expression that she was listening to the music. But there was one song I’d notice she’d get animated over when it came on. The first time I just assumed she was just having one of her random outbursts. Sometimes she’d act all happy and clap for seemingly no reason, so when this happened in the car, I just figured she was just happy to go for a ride with me.
Then there was this one afternoon while I was picking Rosalie up from daycare in the Spring. It was nice outside, and it felt like cruising weather, so I turned up the music just a tad more. On that trip home, a song that I liked back in the 90s came on. It was one of those songs I always heard, but never knew who performed it. The song was also featured in a scene in the movie Vegas Vacation when the daughter, Audrey, gets up on a Vegas sign and starts dancing. While this song was playing in my car, Rosalie threw up her arms and started to wave them as if she were dancing, with a smile on her face. I’m pretty sure this is the song she’d get animated over before. At this point, she’s around 8 months old. The song was “Ready to Go” by Republica.
We’d noticed early on that Rosalie liked music. I remember the first time I noticed she was “getting into it,” I was holding her on my lap and I was scrolling through my Facebook feed. Every so often an ad would play music. The first couple of times I didn’t pick up on it, but then it became too consistent. Every time an ad played music, Rosalie would sway side to side. As soon as the ad was done, she’d stop. After I figured out she was doing this on purpose with music, I’d play a song and she’d sway. Later that day I told Leanne to hold her and “watch this.” I’d play a song, and Rosalie would sway back and forth. When Leanne played the piano, Rosalie would always get excited. So ever since about 3-4 months, we knew Rosalie liked music.
Over the summer, I didn’t travel with Rosalie by myself very much because Leanne was home since she taught. Since schools have been back, we’ve been taking Rosalie to a new in-home daycare, which is much closer, which makes the time to listen to music in the car much shorter. This past Monday I picked up Rosalie from daycare. On the way back I look over, and Rosalie is clapping. She normally doesn’t clap unless she hears others clapping or she’s happy. My ears then tune to what’s playing on the radio. It’s quiet since I had the volume low, but I can tell it’s “Ready to Go” from Repliclica. I turned up the volume, and Rosalie turned to me with a giant grin on her face and she started to clap more aggressively. She LOVES this song.
The next day, I wanted to get her reaction to this song. Previously, whenever she’s heard it, she’s been strapped into a car seat. What would she do with complete freedom? I cued the song up on my phone and cast it on my TV. I mistakingly hit the record button on the camera and the play button at the same time. I wanted to get a few seconds of Rosalie before the song started playing so you could see her full reaction to hearing the song come on. You can see her face is already lit up. She’s 15 months in this video. Not walking yet.
Neither Leanne nor I are dancers. We’ve never really danced with Rosalie. Any movements she makes are natural to her or she’s seen on TV, or others possibly dancing.
It’s things like this that make me happy. I love seeing her enjoy music. I’m really glad she’s got good taste in music. She’ll grow up telling all her friends how the music they listen to is terrible. HA! I find it very cool that out of all the music that she’s been exposed to on my Lithium station, she chose her own song and not one that I tried to get her to like. This is now my favorite song, too.