Bilingual Music Playlist…with a dash of Freestyle and Celia.

When la Nena and I are in the car together, the radio is usually stuck on the XM Kid’s Place Live Channel. I like the station. They play Indie kid songs and rarely do any of the songs make me want to plug my ears. Exceptions being Happy Noodle vs Sad Noodle and anything, I mean anything, by Randy Kaplan. (No matter how cute he is…)

Every once in a while as a song comes on, I say “Oh! I love this song!”

Maria finally figured out what leads to my joy: “Mama, you say that when you hear a song from when you were young.”

Snagged.

Sometimes, the XM folks stick an oldie, like Stand by Me, into the playlist.

So it is no surprise that every time I make a new playlist for Maria on the iPod, I sneak in some music I love, and want her to learn too. When she was 2, she could sing practically all the songs on the Talking Heads’ Little Creatures album.

I just made this playlist for her and stuck in Let the Music Play by Shannon. Remember her? Or maybe you had to be a kid in Jersey in 1984? And of course, I had to stick Celia in there. I decided to leave out I Want Candy. That’s for Mami’s playlist.

Anyway, we’re really loving some of these songs, especially Because it’s There, Bowl of Cherries and the Los Lobos version of Heigh-Ho from their Disney album. And, I love when Maria sings the Kumbia Kings:

No tengo dinero
Ni nada que dar
Lo unico que tengo es amor para amar

These playlists are a way for me to sneak Spanish into our lives with more frequency, because let me tell you, I have fallen down on the Speak Spanglish job.

What are you listening to?