Play it again Jake....

Play it again Jake...
(March 27, 2009)


The progression of most young babies when they finally get the hang of their hands and grabbing things is to start banging on things. Shake whatever they get their hands on, hit anything that they can reach and the goal of all of this shaking and banging it to see what noise they can get out of it. Hence the very popular rattle companies! Jacob has always liked the toys that were musical instruments, there is a link to a very very old video of Jacob banging away on a toy drum to the right in my links section, I think he was around 7 months old and still getting the hang of sitting without support. Then of course his favorite toy for months and months were his piano and xylophone that he got for his 1st birthday.

But I was curious at what point do the toys stop being just instruments of "noise" and more instruments of "music"? Has Jacob always gravitated towards musical toys because he liked the "music" or was it just the internal instinct of small children to like the noise aspect of it.

I noticed the other week that Jacob was starting to get excited about dancing and trying to sing and move along to songs. The favorite action songs being "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Patty Cake" he has started actually moving along with the motions with me and although they aren't perfect they are good enough to bring a smile to anyone who sees him trying to move along. And of course you haven't lived until you have seen Jacob do a mean air guitar! (HILARIOUS) I decided to see if this musical kid of mine was ready to take it to the next level and leave the old "bang on" instruments behind for something a little more child sophisticated! The result was the following toe tapping hoe down!!

The funniest part about this is that I have Jacob enrolled in numorous craft/activity classes through our counties Parks and Recrecation department and we had a craft class the other day with about 7 other youngins' and after he was done his painting he got his harmonica out of my purse and started walking around playing it. I wish I would have had my camera because the other kids followed him around like little two year old groupies! He loved the attention!! I was tempted to put a hat down on the floor and gather donations, you never know with this economy!