Zeke's in Love

Zeke loves Mommy and Daddy. Zeke loves puppies and kitties. Zeke loves goldfish crackers. Zeke loves music and dancing.

BUT, above all, Zeke loves Laurie. I mean, he really loves Laurie.

Laurie is Laurie Berkner and we spend at least one hour a day with her a day. If he had his way, Zeke would make it many more. She is a children's music superstar with four CDs, all of are constantly at the ready on the iPod. When he was sick recently in Florida, the only that would make him feel better was watching the Laurie Berkner DVD that his Auntie Dawn graciously let him keep. (Thanks, Aunt Dawn. No, really.) It is without any exaggeration that I say from the moment he wakes up to the moment I put him in his crib, Zeke is asking for us to play music and we all know he means Laurie Berkner. We have gotten to the point where are limiting how much he listens to her. In the morning, he can listen to some of her music on our Apple TV unit (because he often has to see the CD cover, not just hear her). After he wakes up from his nap, he gets to watch the DVD.

How did this all start? Zeke loves music, but really started getting into it when he was a year old. He would do handplay motions for "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Wheels on the Bus". This summer, we started taking music classes and I guess it got me more focused on playing more children's and adult's music for Zeke. Zeke also enjoys making music (including on Daddy's old keyboard). He really enjoyed one CD which I only sorta enjoyed, so I started playing other things from our collection, including Laurie Berkner's Victor Vito. He enjoyed it, so I got more, not knowing what the reprecussions would be.

I complain about the constant demand for Laurie Berkner, but there are some positives and it could be much worse. (I just don't get the Wiggles' popularity, so I'm glad Zeke doesn't either.) Her music is catchy and fun to sing -- check out her website for some video clips. Zeke knows the lyrics to his favorite songs, "sings" along (at least when there are animal noises to be made) and dances his heart out. He even has the choreography down for some of the songs. For example, he spins when Laurie sings "so I turned around" in "I'm Going to Catch You". During "We Are the Dinosaurs", he stomps, marches, mimes eating, lies down when the dinosaurs rest and then roars at the end. It is so amazingly cute. We've taken video of it (both with and without the turtle costume), so will try and post it. It seems to be improving his vocabulary and even buys me some time to make dinner uninterrupted.

As a result of this love affair with Laurie, we have decided to take Zeke to his first concert. Laurie Berkner will be here in December. I feel a little ridiculous taking my one year old to a concert (and having to pay for a ticket for him), but we could not miss the opportunity to see how he will react.