Decisions, decisions

The garbagemen came at exactly the same time that Steve on Blue's Clues starting singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" this morning. You've never seen such a conflicted 16-month-old in your life.

He was standing on our bed by the window and trying to angle his little body so that half of him could watch Steve while the other half watched the men crush our garbage in the big, green truck. I think he pulled it off.

"Spider" is his favorite song, and he not only sings it, but he also does a variation of the gestures that go along with it. For some reason, he's most likely to break out into this song when he's in his high-chair, so we get a kind of seated interpretive dance version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" with our meals.

The best part, however, and he's been doing this for months now, is that at the end he claps. Whether he sings it, you sing it, or it's on the radio, at the song's conclusion, Samson applauds.

I have no idea where this comes from, and it's the only song he does it for [although he occasionally claps at the end of "Happy Birthday"], but I can remember singing him to sleep over the summer with the spider song. He was totally wiped out, head on my shoulder, barely awake, but as I finished singing, his little head popped up, and I heard the faintest of claps from over my shoulder. Then he put his head back down and fell asleep.

Speaking of kids' songs, Slate had a good article on Friday about children's music. When Samson was first born, and Vicki would have kids' music on, I always noticed and was sure to turn it off as soon as young Samson went for a nap or a bath or whatever.

I have now come to terms with the fact that more often than not, I don't even notice this new soundtrack to our lives --- unless it's something really egregious like the Wiggles singing Copacabana or something. I just can't get into those guys...