Otter's taste in music

We've started playing music at breakfast and dinnertime, to get all three of us listening to more music and to help Otter unwind (and stop asking for the Wiggles when he's tired or frustrated).

Whenever the speakers in the kitchen come on, Otter looks up from his high chair, stops eating, and says "sing-ing" or "bio-lin" or "horn". For really perky tracks, he says "dancing!"

We also listen to music en route to and from daycare, leaving me feeling a bit NPR-deprived (oh pity my poor over-educated yuppie liberal woes, right?), especially as lately all he's asked for is "Lo-Lo", his favorite song, which he is willing to hear an indefinite number of times in a row. Wait, not only willing, but eager, and determined; the track has barely ended and the CD player is grinding into that momentary several-second lull as it reloads the track (as I have it on repeat) and he's saying "Lo-Lo! Lo-Lo! LO-LO! Again! AGAIN!"

It does make it easier to get him out of daycare without tears, as he'll more willingly relinquish a plastic bead bracelet or the doll stroller or a plastic phone receiver to his daycare provider if I say "when we go to the car we can hear Lo-Lo..."

Aside from his toddler repetition fetish, Otter has quite eclectic taste, from Grover (of Sesame Street) explaining "Over and Under and Through" to his afore-mentioned favorite Vieux Diop's "Sing Lo-Lo" (on Putumayo's African Playground) to Ani Difranco's "Knuckledown" on her latest CD (and thanks again, G, for the unexpected CD gift). He'll listen to almost anything, though he's most interested in songs with words he recognizes (Ralph's World does a train song, for example) and tunes he's heard (such as any rendition of Sesame Street's theme song).

One of nicest side effects of all this is his joy in hearing us sing, and our joy in the times he chimes in. This morning, he was working hard on saying "B-I-N-G-O"--he could manage B-I-N or g-O, but usually not both. Mornings are WAY better when a small voice from your back seat is singing along.