Rite of passage

Today, I played a CD for William in the car.

I know, stop the presses, right? How about this: it was the first time I'd actually played one of his own CDs for him, per his request, in the car.

Usually, I play my own CDs or we listen to satellite radio. I have played the XM Kids channel for him, and I also played Christmas choral music for him in December. But I'd never taken one of his little kiddie CDs and played it for him. He's been happy enough with the Mom-dictated format up until now, so I hadn't seen any reason to mess with it. If ain't broke, don't fix it, etc. etc.

Also, I'd always heard people moan and groan about how all they ever get to listen to in their cars is Raffi (or Barney or whatever grating kid's music their child became slavishly devoted to). I always turned up my nose a bit and thought, "Hello, who's in charge here? You're the parent. You're driving. You get to choose what music you listen to in the car. End of story."

Of course, then I realized that my child was getting old enough to hear and understand some of the lyrics to the songs I was listening to. Good-bye, vintage Beastie Boys CD. See you later, Buffy the Vampire Slayer soundtrack. I relegated those to the "listen to only when alone" stack awhile ago, and that's when I began turning to the satellite radio children's channel (116, if you need to know).

So I guess it was only a matter of time before I toted William's CDs out to the Mazda. But happily, at least he wanted to listen to a They Might Be Giants CD. It may be kiddie music, but it's still TMBG. It's a win-win for both of us. And it's kind of amazing, now that I think about it, that it took this long.