Family Favourites

Me and the Other Half have very similar musical tastes. Not exactly surprising though, since we both like a very wide range. Of course, there is some music that I don't like that he does and vice versa. We've always enjoyed having a good sing along to our favourite tunes. Following the birth of our daughter, these sing alongs became useful in calming her down and getting her to sleep. So it shouldn't really come as a surprise that she, now nearly two and a half years old, now also shares our favourite songs. Its seems a bit bizarre for a toddler to love listening to Pink Floyd, Meatloaf and Offspring.

Obviously, we have to be a bit careful with what songs we actually put on when she's around, especially since she now repeats anything she hears. Unfortunately, this has also vastly limited which of our DVDs can be played during the day too. It was only when an impressionable, innocent little baby was suddenly around that we realised that a very large portion of our film collection are completely unsuitable for a younger audience. Even most Doctor Who episodes are a bit too scary. Examples including the weeping angels, people with gas masks for faces and people without any faces at all. 

Luckily, all of my beloved period dramas are entirely suitable for all ages and come with the added bonus that I can claim I'm teaching my daughter about our cultural and social history. She was leaping around the room with joy when Edward asked Eleanor to marry him at the end of Sense and Sensibility. Unluckily, the Other Half despises the works of Jane Austen and anything like it. So if we're all at home and wanting to watch the television, we all too often end up watching CBeebies or repeats of Frasier and Scrubs. 

I'm very much looking forward to my little girl being old enough to start sharing my love of books. She already has her own large and always growing collection of small children's books and she loves me to read them to her over and over, never tiring of the story. Once she's old enough, I really love the idea of reading all of my favourites together: A Little Princess, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter. But what if she doesn't like these? I suppose I shall have to get used to reading all of her favourites. I suppose it's a bit silly and sentimental to imagine that she's going to enjoy the same things I did as a child. And I suppose really I wouldn't want her to. I want her to have her own favourites and her own taste. It's just nice to have some in common.