March 2 - Karaoke Dance Party

Okay, I've been excited about writing this post, because I think this might be THE parenting innovation of 2016. This is about to change the game right here. Two words: YouTube Karaoke.

Here was my problem: I don't know how to play an instrument. I've tried to pick them up at various points in my life, but nothing has ever really clicked. I love to sing and I love to make music, but my ability to do so has always been limited. This was especially galling to me when I tried to sing bedtime songs to my kids, and I couldn't adequately get out my favorite tunes without converting them into acapella numbers. What I needed was a background track behind me that I could sing to. And then one day in 2014 I had the idea of searching YouTube on my iPhone to find karaoke songs.

Holy crap. There are thousands upon thousands of karaoke tracks available on YouTube. The selection is a little weird sometimes, some of the selections don't have lyrics that scroll with the song (so you just have to know the words yourself), and quality of the instrumentation can vary, but man oh man, the selections are DEEP. I have a playlist that has 10 songs by the Smiths/Morrissey on it... I'm lucky if I find one Smiths song at a standard karaoke joint! AND THEY ARE SO MUCH FUN TO SING.

So I've been singing karaoke to my kids at bedtime for the past year and a half, and they've picked up some favorites along the way. So for morning activity today, I turned the tables on them and had them sing me some of their favorite tracks.

We set up on the kitchen table after breakfast. Zephyr was torn between David Bowie's "Space Oddity" and an Elvis tune, but he eventually decided on Elvis' "Marie's the name (of his latest flame)".

Zephyr does "Marie's the name of his latest flame" in the style of Elvis Presley. Well, kind of in his own style, actually.

Since Zephyr can read, I think he was a little early on a few lines just out of standard Karaoke panicking. I needed to prod him a little to keep the tune and timing, and keep up the volume. But I was really proud of him for stepping up, and I think the King would have been into it. And seeing his brother do it made Lyric really want to do it himself.

Lyric wasn't at all conflicted about which song he wanted to do.

Lyric does "Moonage Daydream" by David Bowie. And he nails it. No, he can't read yet, he just knows the words because it's his favorite bedtime song.

He kinda nailed it, right? I love that dude's "singing my heart out" face.