The Sound of Music (Please Make it Stop!)

Some people claim that children learn better when their life's lessons are sung to them, and that Mozart makes a baby smarter. This theory has permeated through the toy industry with great gusto, of course, with the predictable result that everything you might buy for your infant takes three double A's, or two triple A's, or six D batteries to truly make for a baby-riffic experience.

We had sworn, before Sydney was born, that we would not fall for anything which required batteries. After all, parents have been mollifying their children for centuries without artificial help. But we quickly found out that that was because one parent was with said infant all the time, and that while this may be the ideal experience for our newborn we were not accustomed to having a living, breathing third brain super-glued to our bodies at all times. We've slowly let go of the no batteries mantra, and as a result, Sydney's musical repertoire has been gradually building.

Too bad you can't change the tune.

Or the instrument. Or the order of the &#$@^&^ songs.

A mechanical swing belts out snippets of artificial notes resembling a carnival ride. Frere Jacques and Oh Suzianna and Row Row Row Your Boat for as long as you can stand it. A musical mobile floats birds and bees and butterflies in the air and croons Papa's Gonna Buy You and also Night Sounds for that outdoor experience. A blue, fuzzy, beloved octopus plays Mozart and some other classical tunes, thankfully short. A lion, when his tail is pulled, plays a lovely little ditty. And a bouncy chair will vibrate (good, good, good, good vibrations..) and will run through a series of sedate tunes which will put Sydney into a nice, quiet, contemplative mood every time. While the music would soothe Sydney to sleep it would make us think of wood paneling and tons of flowers and black umbrellas for some unknown reason until just today we realized that it sounded exactly like funeral parlor music.

Our own musical tastes run somewhat less than clean, to the extent that we actually have video of Sydney "dancing" to the lyrics of Devil's Haircut by Beck. It's still music and fair game but it's definitely a far cry from Mozart's Requiem or Beethoven's 5th or whatever else is supposed to expand the mind of the young.

As for us, we too sing for Sydney, mostly the same thing over and over, and mostly having to do with a) not crying anymore, b) how fun the next activity is going to be c) no, we said the next activity was fun, and d) how did things get so bad?

We're not musically inclined, really. So maybe it's just as well that all her toys seem to be. Although the great maestros would hardly consider the noise that comes out of these toys music, I daresay. More like... reckless noise. Which plays over and over. And over. And over.