Sing a Song

As Jackson is now learning words and building his vocabulary and singing skills, I think more and more about the music on our car journeys--especially since we are in the car two hours per day.  I also want him to be surrounded by as many different types of music as possible to help him learn rhythm and beat.  We have resorted to CDs recently because the radio over here just isn't cutting it.

One reason is there is not enough variety in the stations.  There are two soft rock stations, five pop stations, and two classical stations.  This would usually be all right for a car ride, but there are only about ten songs that get played on the pop stations--and I only like two of them.  The soft rock stations are fine most of the time, but I like to know the words to songs so I can sing along and if it's an obscure, old hit, then all is lost.  And in my opinion, classical is always wonderful because who can fault music played perfectly with no offensive lyrics?  The only problem is sometimes I just need to sing and I struggle to do that with Mozart.

And the other problem with the radio over here is too much talking!  The classical stations don't do this, but every other station has DJs who talk entirely too much about their own lives.  I enjoy hearing the news on the hour, every hour, and I can tolerate ads since they are necessary; but that's about it.

For a while now, Jackson and I have listened to Disney songs on the way to nursery in the mornings and then in the evenings, I choose the songs because Jackson usually sleeps on the way home.  The only CDs I had to choose from until today were Shania Twain's greatest hits and Adele's latest album.  Jackson and I made a trip to Southport today to pick-up a few things and to have a play date with our old pals, Thora and Ralph, and while we were there, we invested in a new collection of good driving tunes.  Our compilation includes Billy Joel, Bruno Mars, Joss Stone, Mariah Carey, Amy Winehouse, and the perfection that is The Carpenters.  This should be a nice, fresh mix to last us a few months.  Of course, there will still be a sprinkling of Disney songs and the radio every now and then--I don't want to lose touch with what's hip and happening, after all.

And if you are reading this and wondering why I don't have a 'playlist' or 'mp3s' or a device that connects to the sound system in our car, well I'm not that hip.

Making faces before bedtime

Jackson's latest facial expression

Jackson 'told' me what he wanted to do this morning by pointing at the keyboard and saying something in his created language

The one moment where Jackson was still for a picture during his two-hour Play Town visit

Developmental updates:  Jackson turned 16 months old today!  Two of his molars have started growing through this week and have been causing him some discomfort.  They're two top molars, symmetrical from one another and they are quite pointy; Jackson is having trouble soothing himself with teething toys so he tends to chew on his spoons.  We've also used some Calpol (Tylenol) and lots of love and cuddles to help Jackson this week.  Four times this week, he fell asleep while I was holding him, so he must know when he needs extra TLC to get through the tough times.  At the mention of the word 'hat,' Jackson touches his head.  He knows what 'shoes' mean as well and when I said we were going to go 'outside' today, Jackson even went and fetched my shoes one-at-a-time--so he even has inference skills!  His climbing skills have really advanced and I noticed this at Play Town today when he scaled a padded, lumpy ladder to get to the top of the climbing frame quite quickly.  I struggled to keep up with him!  (They must be working on upper-body strength at nursery.)

If you see Sammie Miles Davis, Jr. and Bella, give them my love.