Proud Musical Mama

I love music and singing.  It's always been a dream of mine to have little musical children.  Mauricio is also a musician.  In fact, that's one of the first things that attracted me to him- ooo, he plays guitar... ::drooool::  So, when we got married, I saw my musical family becoming a reality!

Although we're both have a love for music, we are not pushers.  We do not see the need to enforce this in our children's lives.  We'd prefer it if they would naturally come to love music, on their own.  This would make us so happy!  We hope that by being surrounded by music and by seeing how FUN it is, that they will be attracted to it as we are.

I'm happy to announce, that our first son is a prodigy!  Ok, maybe not really, but he loves music, singing and dancing.  He's been dancing since he was 10 months old and you all remember the show he put on at my brother's wedding! 

He has also been singing since he turned a year old.  And, I don't just mean baby singing, I mean REAL singing.  Since I give voice lessons from our house, he has grown up listening to a lot of vocal warm-ups.  At a year old, he was able to sing a downward 5 tone (Sol-Do) on Ya.  No kidding... he did it the right way.  He had all the intervals down and many times could match my pitch!  AMAZING!

About a month ago, we noticed him singing to himself a lot.  When we listened in, we realized that he was singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".  He didn't have the words... it was more like "Tik, Tik, iiii staaaa", but he did have the correct melody!  Again, we were shocked.  He was only 18 months old!

Since then, we've been playing games to see what kind of an ear he has for pitch recognition, and for the most part we are very impressed.  I'll sing a pitch (Laaaa) and then say, "Marco's turn" and see if he can match the pitch.  Sometimes it takes a few tries, but he probably gets it 8/10 times.  Like I said, a singing prodigy!

Marco is also very particular about the kind of music he wants to hear.  For example, I'll usually sing to him while changing his clothes and diaper.  In the morning I like to sing a "good morning" song or "Red Robin".  This is no longer acceptable.  He shakes his head and whines, "eeeeehhh".  He ONLY wants to hear the ABC's or Twinkle, Twinkle... they have the same melody... coincidence? I think not!

We hope that since he is growing up in an environment where music is an everyday common occurrence that he will only know a life filled with music. We live in a house where instruments are readily available to be used and he doesn't need special permission or a special occasion to get his hands on them.  And with our encouragement, "beautiful singing Marco", "I looooove your singing", we know he'll fall in love with music just as we have.

I am one proud musical mama!