What's Your Jam?

For the past few months, my older son has been pestering me to buy him earbuds so he can listen to music on our old iPod. This summer we will be driving to Tennessee for a family vacation, and during our nine hour drive, I'm sure both of my boys having their own headphones will lead to a slightly more pleasant road trip. Last weekend, I bought them each earbuds, and both boys have been listening to music on the iPod or my phone, and my younger son Josh has turned into the Verizon man, as he shouts periodically, "Can you hear my music now?"

As I was making dinner the other night, Josh was lounging on the couch with my phone crooning, "you're wonderful, flawless, oooh you're a sexy lady." Yep, that's my five-year old innocently singing along to some "racy" Bruno Mars' lyrics, but then again, that's nothing new in the Reagan house.

My children's needs and desires supersede mine in almost every aspect of my life. Most evenings, I prepare two entrees for dinner. I have given up trying to watch the news or any TV program I enjoy. I willingly play endless board games, at bed time I read the same book over and over for weeks on end, and play outside with my boys in subarctic temperatures. But, there is one area I refuse to concede or compromise on--music.

If I am ever interrogated by the CIA, they can skip the waterboarding and just play Kidz Bop for roughly seven and a half minutes and I will cave like a house of cards. Whatever you want to know, I will tell you. Just stop the insipid children's music! My children have no idea who the Wiggles are nor have they ever heard a catchy tune by the Fresh Beat Band because "Mommy, don't play that." I loathe rousing Disney power ballads. One of my proudest moments was when my son Nate came home from school complaining about the awful song "Let It Go" that all of his classmates were singing.

Since they were babies, my children have always listened to Mommy's music whether we were riding in the car, cleaning the house, or jumping into pillow piles in the living room. And with the exception of a few Jay Z and Eminem tracks, I seldom censor what we listen to in our home and car. Before starting preschool at the local church, the teachers asked us to fill out a paper listing  the boys' favorite food, color, activity, TV program, and song.  As Nate and I worked one afternoon filling in both his form and Josh's, who was two-and-a-half at the time, I asked Nate about his favorite song, or I should use the correct terminology in our house, "What's your jam?" He promptly responded, "Drink in My Hand." I smiled as I wrote down the song title and felt it rather fitting since the singer's last name is Church. I fist bumped Nate and said, "Fill it up/poor it down/ I got forty hour week worth of trouble to drown." I then asked Nate about Joshie's jam. He promptly responded with the "X-box and Atari" song. I grimaced and asked Nate for another suggestion, seeing as I didn't feel it entirely appropriate to write down that my two-and-a-half year old's favorite song was CeeLo Green's "F*** You (Forget You)." Nate's next suggestion was "The Underwear Song" otherwise known as "Sexy and I Know It." Nope, couldn't write that one down either. We finally decided on "Fruit Loops," the Blake Shelton cover of the classic Kenny Loggins' "Footloose." Once while watching Josh, my best friend gave him a bowl of Cheerio's after he requested "Fruit Loops." He was a little perplexed.

Yes, my children listen to and sometimes sing inappropriate lyrics, but before you go judging me, I would like to point out my children are almost completely unaware of any inappropriate words and their meanings. When Nate came home a few months ago and told me one of his friends said the "s" word, I asked him, as I braced myself for his first step towards a loss of innocence, what the "s" word was that his classmate used, and he whispered, "Stupid, and that's not a nice word." I replied, "You're right. That word isn't very nice." Likewise, the "h" word and the other "s" word, "hate" and "shut up," are also off limits.

Growing up, I only recall listening to The Beatles, Beethoven, The Rolling Stones, The Four Tops, Journey, Linda Ronstadt, Prince, Frank Sinatra, and The Doors--no kids' music. The first time I heard Bruno Mars' "Locked Out of Heaven," I immediately was taken back to riding in my mom's Thunderbird listening to The Police's "Roxanne."  Probably the same age as my Nate, I remember loving how Sting rolled the initial consonant sound. If you asked me then what the song was about, I wouldn't have known. Even if I had paid attention to the lyrics, I probably would have guessed Roxanne was a crossing guard, and the singer was in a rush to get across the street, so "put on the red light, Roxanne." When Nate finally figures out what "Locked Out of Heaven" is really about, I doubt he's going to feel comfortable having a conversation about how smart and subversive Mars is comparing carnal knowledge of a woman to a religious experience, especially not with his nerdy English teacher mom who will go on and on about the irony, metaphors, and diction. For right now, we both just enjoy the "Oh, Yeah, Yeah" song.

While the excitement of our new earbuds has already begun to wane, I know their love of music will only continue to grow.

Best.Weekend.Ever.

Two weekends ago, we took our boys to Great Wolf Lodge. We had planned the same trip last winter which was foiled not once but twice by ear infections. So it was no surprise on Saturday afternoon, when my older son began to complain about his ear. After a visit to the Urgent Care, we managed to get the antibiotics he needed to halt the ear infection in its tracks. We departed Sunday morning; my brother-in-law's family following us on the highway. About an hour into our drive, my husband seemed agitated as he pulled off the highway. He wasn't feeling well and wanted me to drive the rest of the way to the resort. Twenty minutes later, he was heaving out the window of our car onto the highway. Hoping it was something he ate, we took our boys to the water park, but a few hours later it was painfully clear, my husband was the victim of an evilly, ill-timed stomach bug.

While I do not believe in Hell, if Hell does exist and I end up there, I guarantee Hell is not going to be hot. Nope, Hell for me is two things--cold and moist. As I stood in the wave pool, my eyes nervously darting back and forth between both of my boys, shivering in my bathing suit, trying to convince myself that I was not taking a communal bath with the hundred other people in the wave pool as band aids swirled in the water, I contemplated switching places with my husband.  When it comes to the stomach virus, I'm Katniss Everdeen. I volunteer as tribute for the Reagan District. I feel I handle the stomach flu with relative grace and appreciate the slimming effects of a good stomach bug. After eating at the buffet and dropping forty dollars in the arcade in less than an hour and coming away with a slap bracelet, bouncy ball and three Tootsie Rolls, I couldn't wait to crawl into bed and watch the Oscars to see the winners from all the movies I hadn't seen. Just as I settled into bed, my husband resting peacefully after a tumultuous afternoon spent in the hotel bathroom, my boys began to complain from the pull-out couch that they couldn't fall asleep because of the light from the TV. I settled for reading about the Academy Awards via social media. A few hours later, I was awakened by the restless flopping of my younger son and discovered him shivering, the covers wrapped around his older brother who was laying horizontally across the bed. I moved my younger son into my bed and spent the remainder of the evening dozing between kicks. The following morning, I returned to the cold, moist wave pool but enjoyed a short reprieve when my two-year-old nephew's warm urine trickled down the side of my body.

In contrast, this past Saturday, before seeing a matinee at the Walnut Street Theater, I enjoyed a pleasant lunch with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law at Talula's Daily. Post show, I met my husband for dinner at Maggiano's, and then we met up with some of my husband's work friends for drinks and enjoyed some live music performed by one his colleagues. In the morning, as I chatted with my hairdresser and enjoyed a Dunkin Donuts coffee, I contemplated how I was only a book and a three mile run away from the "Best.Weekend.Ever."

At Maggiano's, my husband and I talked about the family style dinners we had once enjoyed there with our friends before any of us had children. I thought about all those weekends we spent eating and drinking at non-chain restaurants, seeing the majority of the films nominated for Academy Awards outside the animation category, and blaming a bad night's sleep on too much wine. Those were the days.

But those days pale in comparison to my son's expression of joyful disbelief as we entered the water park, prompting a stranger to say, "That face is priceless." Those days pale when compared to the squeals of delight as my boys bobbed gleefully through the waves. And as we pulled out of Great Wolf Lodge on Monday afternoon, and my son uttered an unsolicited thank you for a fun trip, well, I guess it was a fun overnight with a few minor hiccups. And those hiccups make for a better story and ensure we'll never forget the perfectly imperfect "Best.Weekend.Ever."