Dancing Queens

So I just realized it's been over a week since I last posted. Ooops, sorry. I'm gradually feeling better and better, which means I'm getting more and more ambitious about actually DOING things during the day. Things other than laying on the couch and moaning about nausea or taking marathon naps. Oh, don't worry, I still take naps and moan about nausea. But the naps are shorter and the nausea is mostly in the evenings. Like right now. But I still have dishes to clean up, and I'm too guilt-stricken to lay down on the couch before cleaning them, so I'm using this blog as a procrastination tool. Thanks for enabling me.

So our renewed up-and-about-ness means that the girls are happier and we spend more time in the car. They're good passengers, and better when I play music instead of my favorite NPR "chit-chat". A handful of months ago, I mourned the passing of my long-favored alt-rock station that was the soundtrack to my college and young-adult years. It was going off the air, to eventually be replaced by Something Else. I mourned it with a co-worker who was shocked to find someone else who still listened to it. Well, the pre-set is still there in my car. And while trying to find music for the girls the other day, we re-discovered it. It's now dance music. Like club dance music. Like the kind of music that you dress up in skimpy clothing for, wait in line for an hour in the cold with no coat on for, then drink a lot and gyrate on a sardine-like dance floor to. (I was always impressed at the young twentisomethings that manage this in a Boston winter. Just driving by them makes me cold...)

Anyway, my preschoolers love this music. They don't know anything about the skimpy dressing, cold-waiting, drinking and gyrating parts. They just hear the music and think it sounds "fun". 

So we drive the streets of Boston in our nondescript 2007 CRV, secretly harboring a traveling dance party. No line required, although admittance is reserved for an elite few...

Seriously though, now that the girls are starting to listen to what they hear on the TV and radio and start asking questions about what they hear, dance music isn't so bad. There aren't many words to it, it's mostly just synthesized rhythms and an occasional "melody". While I don't find it particularly edifying from a musical perspective, at least there aren't catchy lines for my girls to repeat. There are endless YouTube videos of very young children singing the provocative lyrics played on mainstream radio. This makes me cringe. The last thing I want to hear from my back seat are lyrics of seduction from the mouths of preschoolers. I've seen commentary on Facebook of little girls who love Rihanna at age 2 and can sing her songs. No offense to the lovely lady from Barbados, but I don't want my preschoolers singing about sexual relations with an abusive boyfriend. I don't really want it at any age, but I'll have less control over the matter when they're older. 

So we listen to dance music. Or CD's. Or occasionally, a bit of NPR. As long as they're not reporting in gory detail on deaths in the Middle East... I want to relish my control over their media exposure while I still can.

So the next time you pass a black CRV driven by a mom-ish looking person, imagine the backseat contains a pair of dancing queens, bobbing to the never-ending beat. (boom-ch-boom-ch-boom-ch-boom-ch...)