Our little musical prodigy

I have to post something a little more uplifting today.  I've already talked about Gabriel and his love for music.  Well, he has been blowing us away the past few weeks as we watch him.  He has a CD player in his room, and for awhile I was switching out some of our more mellow CDs to try out on him to see if they caught on.  But he never really seemed into them so I stopped.  The CD that was left in the player is a homemade one with all sorts of songs that I used to play right before we put him to bed when he was smaller.  

Well, one day recently he decided to start listening to it.  We noticed that after dinner he'd go into his room and turn it on, and listen to each song as long as it was just instruments playing.  As soon as the singer or singers started in he'd fast forward to the next song.  Then he started listening to each song a little longer, but we still didn't notice how intently he was listening.  One day Jav noticed that during a Guess Who song he would step off of his puzzle box (which he stands on to reach the controls on the CD player), and walk over to his diaper pail to play the drums at certain times in the song.  Well, this little drum break happens about 4 times in the song, and each time he walks over to the diaper pail and plays along.  We realized the kid is REALLY listening to these songs, and started paying more attention.

He plays imaginary piano along with with Eagles (the slow chords that open up The Sad Cafe), and Van Morrison (the trilly part that opens Caravan) on top of his bookcase.  He sings the word "Love" with Bonnie Raitt every time she sings it in one of her very early songs, Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind.  We haven't showed him or pointed out to him any of this, he figured it out all on his own.  He picks out these teeny parts of a song, decided he likes it and listens to it over and over.   

He had always strummed on my guitar on its stand in the living room when he walked by, but now he is playing loud and then soft, faster and slower, and singing along with his playing.  Luis on Sesame Street was playing guitar and singing the other day, and he ran over to it and started playing and humming with the TV.  I know I am being an annoying, gushing parent, but I just wonder if many two-year-olds are paying this much attention to music. 

When I told my Mom all of this, and mentioned that maybe we need to get him into a music class, she showed her true Mom wisdom and said he probably wouldn't like that much structure, and we just need to keep surrounding him with music like we've been doing from day one.    So I changed the CD in his room, and am trying to just let him discover this new one like he did the first one.  We also have Jav's parents searching for his sister's toy piano that they have in their attic.  We'll just give it to him for Christmas and see what he comes up with.   I'm sure it will be something that dazzles us!