American Idol

ally's new nickname at her daycare is "the american idol." apparently, they will play songs they know she likes, and she then entertains them by singing along. her current faves are "bad day" (daniel powter), "you're beautiful" (james blunt), and "we belong together" (mariah). the teachers think it's pretty hilarious, and she does seem to enjoy performing.

this started after i asked one of the teachers, crystal, if she was a rent fan. she looked surprised, and i explained that one day when "seaons of love" was playing in the car, ally said, "miss crystal sang this today, and i said i have that song too!" i then told crystal that ally can sing "light my candle", and she found that to be pretty funny. but i also said i tried to avoid playing that these days, because i found it pretty disturbing to hear my 3 year old baby girl singing the words "i used to be a junky" and "i was born to be bad".

we first noticed that she was pretty musical when she was about 6 months old. she showed a distinct preference for "the scientist" (coldplay), and that song was the only thing that could soothe her when she was cranky or tired. we got pretty tired of the song, and would sometimes try a switcheroo by playing the song for a minute or so and then changing it to another song. but she would notice immediately and start wailing. let's just say, we don't listen to that song much anymore.

when she hit 18 months, she started echoing songs (singing along but with a delay). at that point, some faves were "nobody" (five for fighting) and "ai ni deng yu ai zi ji" (leehom wang). we would play different songs for her, and she quickly picked up (or assigned) the song names and would request them by name. around the 2 yr mark, she was really in to "hey ya" (outkast), "karma" (alicia keys), and "ai wo bieh zo" (jacky cheung).

it wasn't until she reached 2.5 years that she really started singing with the music. at first, it was rather "pitchy" (hehe), but now she is singing mostly on key. she most recently was very into our good friend's lisa and hogan's wedding cd, and just loved the song "slung-lo". that's the first song she really learned in its entirety, and it was just freaky to watch her singing along to the whole song.

so now once we're in the car, our job is as both chauffeur and dj. our trick is now to try to get her to like the songs we want to hear. i have been successful lately in getting her to like some songs off the new depeche mode cd. it's pretty funny to hear her ask for "john the revelator".

i know the day will come when she will tell us that our songs are boring and uncool, and when she will insist on listening to her own tunes. but for now, i do enjoy hearing her little voice belting out the words "you're beautiful, it's true!"

here are some video clips:

• jingle bells - daycare performance from last christmas (dec 05)
• you're beautiful - jun 06