The Jacques Playlist

My kiddos, particularly Baylor, are all about music these days.  While we play Raffi on a pretty consistent rotation at our house, I like to throw in a bit of non-kid music now and then to try to round out their musical education.

As previously mentioned, Baylor loves my parents' juke box, so I often try to encourage the songs he has fallen in love with there, however "boozy" they may be.  Case in point, the little man loves "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, most of which is about drinking in the morning.  Another favorite is Billy Joel's "Piano Man".  We sang that one at the dinner table last night, and I was instantly reminded of how much that song focuses on alcohol and people down on their luck.  I can just imagine him singing along to that one in kindergarten and having people look at me with concerned glances.  That said, it's an awesome song, classic really, and he'll at least be ahead of the curve when it comes time for college.  Right?

It's not all rock and roll around here, though.  A lot of the songs I know come from Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, so I tend to sing those quite frequently as well.  I learned the words to the beginning of "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" (from the musical Oklahoma) while watching When Harry Met Sally, so I have been singing that to the kids every so often.  The other day we went on YouTube and found the video of it from the original movie, and the kiddos finally got to hear the whole song, twangs and all.



And then there is The Sound of Music ... ah, The Sound of Music.  I love that movie, and I can't wait until the kids are old enough to watch it and appreciate it.  Until then, I have been performing this little number for them.



Typically I try to do it without the subtitles (sorry, it was the best version I could find on YouTube).  And, at Baylor's insistence, I skip over Kurt's part; I guess the little man doesn't like my voice at its highest.

Of course, I have picked up a bunch of other offbeat tunes in my twenty-nine years and occasionally they come up when I'm caring for the kids.  When Baylor was a baby, I started singing part of Abba's "Take a Chance on Me" because I'd heard Andy sing it to Angela on The Office.



Since then, that has become one of my signature routines.  *sigh*

And once, in lieu of singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider one more time, I sang "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" for the little man and he was instantly in love with it.  So I, in my infinite wisdom, borrowed an oldies CD from my parents and played it for him so he could hear the whole thing.  As it turns out, he got into the whole CD and for a while it was in heavy rotation in our minivan ... until he decided one day to put coins in my CD player.  I haven't figured out if there are any in there (or if they were just stuck in the opening) and if any lodged in there would damage a CD, but I'm not taking any chances with the little man's favorite tunes.  They'll have to wait for now.

Amazingly, I never sang before they were born; I don't think my husband had ever heard my voice until I started singing for Baylor.  And no, my voice isn't gorgeous by any stretch of the imagination.  But the kids seem to like it, and that's all that matters to me.

Oh, the things we do for our kids, you know?