In the continuing theme of moving to Texas, I have put together a “Texas Tour” playlist on my iPod, completely made of songs about Texas places. Kit originally had the basic idea to do a Texas mix, but it turned into a fun little project for me. Most of the songs are pretty mellow, and we listen to it sometimes during bath time. The playlist features things like Patsy Cline singing “San Antonio Rose” and Arlo Guthrie singing “Streets of Laredo”. Claire does not react much to those particular songs, but she seems to enjoy “Galveston”, of which we have on old Gordon Calcotte country/surf version and a nice newer alt rock version by some band called Sparklehorse. Claire will sometimes say, “Let’s sing about Galveston!” She also seems to enjoy the Lightnin’ Hopkins blues song, “Goin’ to Dallas”, of which she will sometimes say, “That was a good one” when it is finished. Then again, these are two of my favorites, so maybe she is just tuning into that.

But Claire’s real favorite music is The Countdown Kids and their renditions of toddler classics like “Old McDonald Had a Farm”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, and “Frere Jaques”. She tries to sing along and occasionally clap. The Countdown Kids helped make the six-hour car trip back from Florida back to Atlanta in December more bearable by just keeping Claire occupied for a couple of hours. She also seems to like The Wiggles, who sometimes accidentally appears on our TV after Calliou or Curious George, but Kit and I try to avoid them just because they are kind of creepy and annoying.

Claire can even sing a couple of songs somewhat successfully all by herself, such as “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. It’s just so sweet to see her sing; she concentrates real hard to remember the words, and she gets a big smile on her face when she finishes the song.