There are a kagillion things to be embarrassed about as a mama. GiGi has raised hell with so many of her bibs that I refuse to buy more. We’re using the backup food catchers now.  She wears a cotton candy colored one that reads: HOTTIE. It’s got a mild creep factor to it, since my kid is cute…silly….any word, except for HOTTIE.   GiGi also sucks on cabinet knobs and grocery cart handles no matter how many covers I lay over them. She has accidentally dropped her bottle onto more sets of pricey shoes than I can count and while I’m a smidge embarrassed none of it means the end of the world is coming.

G’ is also known for more ‘making-mama-proud’ habits like chewing the head of a red Buddha that I keep on my desk, or motor-boating my chest, and of course my favorite – talking to Jonathan Richman. 

Music is a key ingredient to our daily mix of life. I wake up singing her ‘good mornings’, we sing to soothe before naps and nighttime, and we most certainly rock out throughout the day simply because if she cannot see, I will make life colorful in other ways.  Needless to say – I have a colossal assortment of tunes to move her soul.  Every person active in her life has their own song that they la-la-la to, so that she is content in their arms.

My mother sings “Gia Lorraine, sat on a plane” and it reminds me Mike Meyers in all black, singing on stage in So I Married an Axe Murderer.  Boy Wonder has a wide range of weird trance-house-indie-synth-pop magic that she adores also.  One best friend of mine, Anouck, belts out a lovely rendition of Whams’ “Wake me up, before you go-go” that I can’t even get next to.  For the life of me I remember one verse before I’m clueless again.  Another best, Lea, can soothe her with the two songs that I have been singing for a good 9+ months- “Blackbird” by the Beatles or “I could’ve danced all night” from the musical My Fair Lady (the Julie Andrew version, not Hepburn. GiGi is quite picky).  Actually, my parents, siblings, and their children can all sing “I could’ve danced all night” since it has sve our life on more than a thousand occasions.

All of these and more send her to bliss each in a different way.  What’s interesting is what makes her rock the f+ck out, and that would be a little Jonathan Richman.  That’s right, Jonathan Richman from Modern Lovers.  I can play any one of his songs and this girl lights herself on fire with the moving and the talking.  The amounts of faux-words that come streaming out of her mouth are astounding. For one reason or another he brings out her passionate side. You can actually see her connect with the music.   I wish I knew what it was that she was telling him when he sings, but I figure that’s between her and Jonathan Richman.

I have recently changed her MP3 player to house a multitude of Jonathan Richman songs and few of my favorites that she has grown accustomed to hearing.  Adele, !!!, The Knife, Jack Johnson, Pavement, Vampire Weekend, The Editors, Elvis Costello, Nina Simone, etc.   I wish there was more space on the player because she would have hours and hours of listening heaven at the touch of her tiny hand.  But alas, I have to limit it to what is touching me at the moment.  So we just keep updating and we keep running into Jonathan Richman, and that's okay because he makes us happy.