How Music Brings us Together

My husband and I have always been the type to sing whatever songs are stuck in our heads, any time, any place. I think I’m constantly humming something, even though I don’t usually realize I’m doing it. We like to be silly and make up words to the melodies, and often have the radio on while we’re working in the kitchen. But I only realized how much fun we were having at this when our son started reacting (delightfully, I should add) to our music.

My husband takes out his guitar much more often now and lets Nathan pluck the strings and twirl the knobs while he plays. And we’ve recently rediscovered the music cable channels and now listen to them every night before Nathan’s bedtime. This new evening ritual is so much more fun than it sounds. We get to enjoy a little bit of every genre of music imaginable (thanks to my husband’s quick trigger finger and short attention span), and we get to see what songs and genres Nathan dances to. His taste in music sometimes surprises us and often makes us laugh. And seeing him dance and smile and clap his hands when he likes a song is such a bonus to this upbeat, carefree and quality time spent together.

Music is bringing us together in a way I’d never thought about before, and it’s been really fun. A few months ago I thought about creating a little music corner for musical instruments (toy and otherwise, when we acquire them), and now it’s a must.

I look forward to sharing my musical tastes with Nathan as he gets older and seeing what types of music he gravitates toward. Will he have the eclectic a little-bit-of-everything tastes of his parents? Will he share my husband’s love of punk rock and rock and roll and mine of metal and traditional ska? It’ll be particularly awesome to see how he likes the music I listened to when I was pregnant with him—he still likes Metallica, so I guess that’s a good sign.  I listened to them a lot when I was driving my long commute to work with him growing in my belly.