Music Man

When children are but a few months old, they begin to show their preferences in terms of toys and books. Later on they pick which food they eat, which nursery rhymes to listen to and which videos to watch. The point is, little people know what they like.

My son has always loved classical music. When he was in the womb, I listened to it most of the time, partly because as a trained classical dancer for most of my life, I enjoyed it, but mostly because of the whole Mozart-brain development theory.

I continued to play classical music when Little A was born, and the first videos he watched (and consequently grew totally addicted to) were the Baby Einstein and then the Little Einstein ones.

When he began to recognize shapes and images, he took great notice of musical instruments - brass, percussion and strings. He studies photos of instruments very intently and sometimes carries them around with him. One of his all-time favourite books from age one to this day is Zin Zin Zin A Violin, which has kept him occupied on plane, train and car rides as well as at home, for hours.

Little A recently inherited a 1/16th size violin that his two cousins have outgrown, to his great delight. Visits to their house have seen him sitting in a corner with both violins in front of him, serenading the rabbits in their cage.

While he seems a little young yet to begin music lessons, we are hoping the love for music remains, and that in time he will make music as well as he enjoys listening to it.