Last week, while playing with her neighborhood best friend, my daughter marched up to me with her hands on her hips and a frown on her face. “Mom, Izzy is four and I’m six and she has her own CD player and a TV in her room.”
Without missing a beat, I answered, “Well, I guess her mom loves her more.”
Thankfully, my daughter understands sarcasm.
I climbed up in the attic and retrieved the CD player that I kept in my office and hooked it up in her bedroom. You would’ve thought I’d just told her we were moving to Disneyland. She was so excited and I was proud that my daughter loves music as much as I do.
Now, my heart beats to the bass line of anything that rocks but since my children have learned to talk and repeat things, I find myself toning down the amount of rock-and-roll we headbang to for fear of the f-bomb being dropped at the Thanksgiving table. Since we live in the country music capital of the world, I reluctantly opt for Brad Paisley over Pantera when the kids are in tow. Country music is generally safer for impressionable ears… or so I thought.
For my daughter’s new CD I player, I downloaded and burned a Taylor Swift CD. DID YOU KNOW TAYLOR SWIFT HAS A RADIO-EDIT VERSION???? I know NOW after listening to my five year old singing “I laugh cause it’s so damn funny.” Really Taylor? Do you not fit in with the cool kids without dropping a ‘bad word’?
I don’t have a problem with profanity, but I’m certainly not going to encourage my children to use it. Maybe we’ll go back to listening to Metallica in the car on the way to school. At least then I’m more prepared to turn down the volume when James Hetfield throws out an explicative.
Other lyrics you don’t want to hear your children sing… not that I have (today) or anything… *ahem*
“God is great, beer is good. People are crazy.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep on going!”
“And a little bit of chicken friend… a cold beer on a Friday night!”
“I’ve got my toes in the water, ass in the sand. Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand.” – the audio clip that followed after this was , “Will, Mama doesn’t like it when you say ‘ass’!”
Nothing in this world is more frightening than the possibility that there is something wrong with your child. Fortunately, other than ear infections that would level grown men, my kids have always been perfectly healthy. Next week my son has an appointment at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital to see a specialist about his eyes. For the first time I am faced with the possibility of our perfect health track record being tarnished. 
Isn’t life supposed to calm down after you retire? I am now in week two of my “retirement” and if anything, I seem to have less time than when I was logging forty hours a week in my office. How is that possible? In the past fourteen days I have visited five states, caught up with umpteen family members, read a book, slacked off at the gym, watched about twenty movies, WORKED, and maintained a sparkling clean home. OK… the last part is a bit of stretch, but at the moment it is sparkling clean!
