Wiggle and Bop

I am very much a music listener. Whether it be my car radio, my DAB radio in my kitchen which normally has 6music blaring out or my IPOD.

Music has been a massive part of both my children’s lives. From an early age I made sure Ida knew it was normal to play music loudly and it was normal to bob, prance and wiggle to music. Ida is well known for her shimmy shimmy moves.
I myself grew up listening to my Mum and Dad’s music collection normally very very loudly and feel that I grew enormously as a person through listening and understanding their music tastes and preferences. When pregnant with Ida I contemplated on buying lullaby’s and soothing songs but remembered that my parents had used soothing songs from my Dad’s record collection rather then music specifically for a child. These songs are still very dear to my heart. My younger sister has a love of Al Green that comes from being rocked to sleep when a baby to his soothing tones.

So when listening to Laura Veirs on the Lauren Laverne’s 6Music radio show whilst making my naughties lunch I fell a little in love with the musical sounds coming out of the radio. And more importantly my two naughties seamed to bob and smile to the music too!
So today I share a little love I have found for women that sings age old nursery rhymes with a little banjo, brass, fiddle and dusty piano. Her love of  children's folk songs along with skipping songs, clapping, playground chants and long forgotten childhood lyrics fit beautifully.

So if your wanting to break the monotony of singing “The Wheels on the Bus” on every journey to Tesco’s have a listen here.
She's even won a Parent's choice award in America!

I absolutely ADORE it

Nursery rhymes...preparing you for your future!

I had a little nut tree,

Nothing it would bear,

But a silver nutmeg

And a golden pear.

The King of Spain's daughter

Came to visit me

And all for the sake

Of my little nut tree.

We know and sing a lot of nursery rhymes, and like me my Daughter will grow up with these words and tunes as part of her childhood. I hope that she will sing them with her children.

In and out the dusty bluebells

In and out the dusty bluebells

In and out the dusty bluebells

On this cold and frosty morning

Here we go round the mulberry bush

The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush

Here we go round the mulberry bush

On this cold and frosty morning.

But when you really listen to nursery rhymes they can be a little bit sinister...

Oranges and lemons ends with “Here comes a chopper to chop off your head” and Hush-a-bye baby puts a baby in a cradle in a tree top on a windy day. So inevitably the baby and cradle fall out the top of the tree!! Half a pound of tuppenny rice is the start of a shopping list that doesn't end well for the weasel. We sing these dressed up horror stories to our babies, without a passing thought.

Fairy tales that we read to them are not safe either, dogs rip apart foxes in Beatrix Potter (oh yes they do...what do you think the farm dogs did to the fox after it tried to kidnap a goose and its eggs?), Pooh bear doesn't have a healthy relationship with food, Cinderella is an abused step daughter that needs a man to rescue her, Sleeping Beauty is farmed off by her parents to three old childless women who have the task of raising her, Hansel and Gretel are put in an oven by an old lady, Little Red Riding hood is allowed to walk alone in a forrest full of rabid wolves... I could go on.

Why are our children's rhymes so full of horror and gore? Are we de-sensitising them for the trials to come? These rhymes and stories come from another age where perhaps they were good lessons of the trials to come. Perhaps it's time for more modern nursery rhymes to make an appearance? Perhaps not.

Our lives are sometimes full of trial and tribulation, but I hope for the sake of my Daughter that she faces them with strength and faith in herself. Unless of course it's a rabid wolf, to which point I hope she is very very well armed and a good shot.