An ornery Boss could always be calmed by classical music while traveling in the car. From the first time left the hospital as a family through this very day, a little Bach goes a long way. The opening notes of a concerto can be counted on to stop her wails and keep her on the silent side of satisfied.
Number Two, on the other hand, has no interest in the soft stuff. It's the thump of the bass that lulls him. Today he had been working himself into a tizzy for fifteen minutes when Salt 'n' Pepa's Push It came on the 80s channel of my Sirius Satellite Radio (have they really been around that long?!?!). His shrieks reduced to fits and starts. I turned it up. The crying stopped completely.
I nodded to myself and settled into a much more relaxing car ride. I even made an extra stop on a library book-returning mission I had thought I was going to have to abort when he was in the midst of his hysterics. It was only when I pulled up to the curb next to the book drop-off box that I realized how the situation might seem to others. The car was vibrating with sound, each tiny tremor making the rear view mirror shimmer. "Ooh, baby, baby" shot out the driver's seat when I opened my door. I turned it down, not out of concern for ear drums or moral development, but out of self-consciousness. Then I made the book depsoit and hopped back in the seat, pumping Push It right back up.
As an elderly gentleman emerged from the library, I figured it was a good thing the song was relatively benign retro hip hop and not something from, say, Big Poppa's body of work. Because a good mother would never expose her bass-fiending baby to that, right?
Riiiiight.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
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7 comments:
My kids love it loud. And since I am a completely unsuccessful mom (meaning I haven't the heart to do my job and protect them from themselves) I let them rock out. Both like the booming, too.
Silas, especially, NEEDS music -- any music -- for the ride.
I might know a guy that knows a little something about cost-efficient mobile and home audio systems...
The baby wants what the baby wants. Having an older car I depend largely on the radio and am usually turning it down as I drive up to daycare because I'm blasting something or other that I don't necessarily want others to know I'm rocking out to..
I sang "All I wanna do is make love to you" constantly when I was four and embarrassed the hell out of my mother. I knew all the words.
Yup, the bass used to soothe my youngest when she was fussy.
Now however, she gives me crap if I listen to too much of it. Now that she's six and "all grown up" she's in that miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers stage.
Makes me think of that Friends episode where Ross and Rachel sing baby got back to Emma...Our littles on favorite is Get Low...I'm a bad mother...
You bring up an interesting point when you talk about the subject matter of the lyrics. Push'it probably isn't what you would hope will come out of your toddler's mouth when asked to sing for the class. ;-)
As a bass head from then till now, I have a couple suggestions:
Pick up a copy of: "Miami Bass Wars" if you can find it. It was part of a series of bass discs from PanDisc records, and while it is seriously booming, the lyrics are pretty harmless stuff.
Some of the tracks on the MBW disc are silly enough that you have to be at least half a kid to appreciate them.
Also, I actually know of a CD which may meet the needs of everyone: "BachBusters" by an underappreciated fellow named Don Dorsey.
Back when I was building stereo systems that were unsafe for pacemakers and pregancy, Bachbusters was the prize of my collection. Nothing quite satisfies like watching Toccata & Fugue in D minor knock the glasses off the face of the guy who was just making fun of your choice of bass-less music. :-D
When I suffered a complete loss of my CD collection due to a burglary, the only CD I made a trip to re-aquire, was the one in question.
The one who digs the classics will love it. Your little bass-head will too.
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