Our one-year-old loves music. He’ll ride in the car and sing along to the radio in his baby way. You can’t understand any of what he’s saying, but you get the idea that he’s attempting to express himself musically. To my 45-year-old ears, that makes it a lot like Hip-Hop.
Music has been useful in soothing both of our children. When he was a baby, the big boy used to respond well to the soulful blues of Luther Allison. Somehow, my wife supplanted Luther with Robin Thicke this time around. I’m not thrilled at this development, but if it keeps the baby happy, so be it. The Wiggles will probably take precedence over everything in a few months anyway.
Babies are geniuses at mimicry. This explains why the baby loves to sing. I mentioned previously that we have a new cuckoo clock. They baby loves to mimic this too. He points at the clock and says, “Uh-oh, uh-oh,” which is not exactly “cuc-koo, cuc-koo,” but he has the inflection down perfectly. The baby’s impersonation is that of a cuckoo who has spilled his juice all over the carpet precisely at two o’clock. “Uh-oh, uh-oh!”
“Oh no, I spilled my juice! By the way, it’s two o’clock, if anybody cares.”
Mimicking simple sounds is standard fare for babies. When they put enough sounds together, it can blow your mind. The other day, the baby was sitting on the floor playing with some toy, or maybe it was a strand of cat fur – who can tell with babies? What mattered was that he was quiet and content.
I was working on the computer. From somewhere behind me came the soft melody of the theme to the 1960s Batman TV show. I turned very slowly as my mind ruled out possible sources of this music: the TV was off; the big boy and his mother were out; the cuckoo only knows two notes, and he was nailed to the wall in the other room anyway; and the cat can’t carry a tune to save his life.
I steeled myself to face a cheesy-TV-show-loving housebreaker, but there was no one there. There was no one except an unusually self-contented 14-month-old. The baby looked up at me and crooned, “Soba soba soba soba sot, YAN YAN!”
Okay, the vocals weren’t all that discernible, but he’s a child of his musical era. The melody was dead on.
Just imagine how many evil-doing goats he’d be able to apprehend, now that he has a baby brother to sing his theme song.
His big brother likes to watch old Batman reruns on Saturday nights, so it’s not a mystery where he got the tune. The thing that blew my mind was that we had missed the last couple of Saturdays. It had been nearly three weeks since we’d heard that theme. The baby sat on those notes all that time so he could pull them out of his diaper weeks later and give Daddy a good shock.
Since then, we constantly goad him into singing the Batman theme for the amusement and amazement of our friends and acquaintances, because, to the best of our knowledge, that’s how parents are supposed to garner attention by exploiting the talents of their children.
Snoozing on the Sofa 
That’s delightful!
My kids – my son especially – have picked up my husband’s penchant for making up new and nonsensical lyrics to songs… it’s a riot.
Talented kids = attention for parents. So true. And satisfying.
You have a fun and talented family. It’s never too early to start using their talents to your advantage. 🙂
I have it on good authority that, when dad was very young he would sing the theme to “Green Acres”.
Well, it is the place to be.
At least he’s not mimicking swear words…yet
On the radio, they bleep out the bad words, so he doesn’t know them yet. But, he does pepper his songs with lots of bleeps.
I have this (totally unproven theory) that this generation of kids are going to be much more musical than any other because of the easy access to all kinds of music on the internet and with iPods and what have you. Our 2-year-old has always been exposed to music, without it even being one of our objectives.
Kids have access to so much more now. As long as the choices don’t overwhelm them, it will be a great advantage.
That old Batman show is an all-time classic. Incompetent bad guys, a superhero who obviously never visited a gym, fight scenes choreographed by an elementary school student, and a theme song that is so catchy I can hear it in my head as I read your post.
Life was simpler then. All you needed was cave under you mansion and at catchy theme song.
The little one is the singing Robin to the big brother Batman. Do you drive the Batmobile?
I’m Alfred; I hand out the Batsnacks.
heheheh
________________________________ Dari: Snoozing on the Sofa Kepada: muhammadmufid.stmikpringsewu@yahoo.co.id Dikirim: Rabu, 26 Juni 2013 21:31 Judul: [Tulisan baru] Baby’s first television theme song
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Thank goodness tunes are the only thing he’s pulling out of that diaper for you. He’s probably like the rest of us thinking, “Man! I’ve had this stupid Batman song stuck in my head for 3 weeks now!”
He leaves the other stuff in his diaper for me to deal with. And now the entire family has that Batman song stuck in our heads.
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