peace at what cost?
A few months ago, Leah was despairing of ever being able to do anything around the house. Liljah needed constant intervention: he needed someone to read him books, he needed someone to occupy him in play, and most of all he needed someone to be holding him and carrying him around. It was a challenge, especially for the Mama, vastly preferred for all of those roles. Things are better now though. Especially when his brothers aren't messing with his stuff (or distracting him with a more creative game) our littlest boy now has moments where he entertains himself for significant stretches of time. The only catch is, for the most part he can only do it while listening to the soundtrack from Disney's Frozen.
Our last big Frozen binge was in the summer, when the soundtrack album was accidentally the only CD that made it into the car for our trip to Maine. We learned all the songs then—oh, did we learn them—but since then the vividness with which they're seared into my brain has faded some. But just like how, for an addict coming back to the drugs, one hit can revive all the old cravings (or so I'm told), it just took one hearing of the soundtrack this winter to ensure that one or another of the songs would never not be stuck in my head. And we've had lots more than one hearing. I try to keep it under three per day.
I'm also trying to introduce new music that he might enjoy—or re-introduce old favorites, since brass band tunes would be vastly preferable. The Nutcracker would be fine too. So far no luck, but I'll keep on it. Today he didn't entirely reject Paul Simon's Graceland as an alternative to a second consecutive playthrough of Frozen.
I boasted long ago of how we managed to avoid kids music with a young Harvey, but we still got stuck with repetition. I suppose that, just as with foods, kids like to play it safe with their music. They like what they like! (And as an aside, Harvey is still a huge fan of Soul Coughing and specifically "Rollin", so in some cases at least they keep liking it for years.)
It's not that Frozen is bad, per se, it's just that there isn't much to it, especially after the 48th listen. And it's catchy, oh so catchy. Both Lijah and I are completely caught at this point, and only one of us likes it. But I like seeing him play independently, so at least for a little while longer I'm going to keep on playing "fo da fut time inna evah" whenever he asks for it.