Category: Home Movies

We love music and our daughter does too. You’ve seen videos of her playing the xylophone, drums, and metal bowls. But you haven’t seen her dancing… Until now!

First up, some background.

In the past year I’ve exposed Miss Leyba to a variety of genres such as opera, blues, jazz, dance, techno, reggae, classical and hip hop music. Heck, when I was pregnant I listened to that stuff too, so make that the past twenty-one months!

I draw the line at country though; I can’t bear listening to it. And no one should be forced to listen to music they hate. I am having visions of Miss Leyba discovering country music in her tweens and blasting it in her room just to spite me. Hmm… Maybe I should delete this paragraph?!

Most recently I have been focusing on music that we can sing along to. Yes, Miss Leyba hums along with me. Sometimes she even starts humming and I can tell which song she is humming, so I start to sing it. She’s that musically inclined. She’s going to grow up and be a rock star. Or a physicist. Ahem.

Anyhow, one of Miss Leyba’s favorite albums right now is Songs from the Street: 35 Years of Music. We dance to songs like Captain Vegetable, Monster in the Mirror, and I Love Trash, but also a bunch of famous songs rewritten by the folks at Sesame Street to be more kid friendly. We’ve been listening to songs by the Goo Goo Dolls, Destiny’s Child, Melissa Etheridge, Paul Simon, Madeline Kahn (oh, she cracks me up!), and many others.

At one point we let Miss Leyba watch these “music videos” on the Sesame Street website when she was teething or upset and needed a distraction. We’ve since cut out all internet time for her (except for Skyping with the Grandparents and Aunt Laura), so now she gets to hear the songs instead of watching them. There’s nothing like a child sucked into a video program to make you rethink things. Suddenly even 15 minutes a day seems like too much for David and I. We may rethink things in a couple of years, but for now it’s banned.

But she loves her Sesame Street friends, so this CD seemed like a good compromise (and the library had it!).

I was going to post a video of her dancing to a Bert and Ernie song, but I took a few videos of her dancing to songs from this album, Runaround Kid, which is fantastic for kids of all ages and we highly recommend it! Anyhow, these videos were WAY better than the one I planned on posting… so here you go!

Warning: Miss Leyba is so adorable in the following video that you may be overwhelmed with cuteness. Watch at your own risk. You’ve been warned.

Leyba Dance Party from Carrie on Vimeo.

In three acts.

Hide and seek with banana hair gel:

Hide and seek with banana hair gel from Carrie on Vimeo.

Daddy is so funny:

Daddy is so funny from Carrie on Vimeo.

Falling asleep at the table:

Falling asleep at the table from Carrie on Vimeo.

I am doing some cooking in the kitchen and suddenly I hear the most beautiful music coming from my feet:

Beautiful music from Carrie on Vimeo.

Miss Leyba came up with the whole thing on her own (even arranging the bowls just so) and, oh boy, does she take her music making seriously.

I love it.

I grew up in New Jersey where The City meant New York (obviously!). Now that we’re living on the West Coast and living in the Bay Area, we have a new city: San Francisco. At least that’s what our friends are referring to when they talk about going into the city. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that, but I’ll give it a shot. The City.

Last week Miss Leyba finally got to check it out FOR REAL.

We met up with my friend April who I last saw in August 2003 in Tuscon. (Wow, does that feel like another lifetime ago!) She recently moved to the Bay Area and we (i.e. ME!) finally got our (MY!) act together and met up.

Our plan to see the new California Academy of Sciences FAILED when we realized several thousand people were visiting the museum too (it reached capacity an hour after opening! with hundreds of people still waiting outside! it was INSANE!):

Climbing the stairs from Carrie on Vimeo.
(Sorry about the audio in the middle; I had to mute the part where I said Miss Leyba’s real name.)

Instead we hit the worlds best playground in Golden Gate Park and ate a super tasty lunch at the Beach Chalet with a front row view of the ocean. We all had a great time (and we hope to meet up again soon!).

Miss Leyba loved April from the get go.

I love it when friends move to town. Come westwards, dear readers! Then you too can hang with Miss Leyba!

And us too. We’re not as fun though.

Here’s a snapshot of life with our daughter!

Hanging out from Carrie on Vimeo.

I tried not to talk too much so you could really hear her. She’s pretty quiet in this movie though. I’ll have to post one where she’s a real chatterbox.

We chat, play, read, explore, sing, dance, and chew on things (her, not me!) all day long. Life is good!