"Twisted by the Dark Side young Skywalker has become."

It all started with Moves Like Jagger. 

Well, that's not entirely true. My daughter has always had a uniquely profound aptitude for memorization, especially when it comes to song lyrics. I guess it really all started with Yo Gabba Gabba and Spongebob Squarepants. Long before she could ever tell us she was hungry, tired, or wanted to be held, in addition to all the counting and spelling she was doing, she could sing the entire opening song to Spongebob (and Gabba, and Kai Lan, and Dora, and... and... and...).  

Recently, however, she and I were standing in the living room. It was pretty quiet in the house, no TV on. We were getting ready to go to the gym. I'm looking around for her shoes and I hear her, in her adorable little three-year-old-voice, and she's singing, clear as a bell, "I got the moves like Jagger, I got the moves like Jagger, I got the mooohooohhooohhhoooohoooooves like Jaggerrrrrrr." It was really adorable. Really, really adorable. It caught me off guard and I thought it was pretty bizarre, but we're getting used to that around here.

I sort of giggled, and looked at her funny, and then we got in the car. We were about ten minutes from the house and I realized I'd committed a cardinal sin. I forgot to bring any juice boxes. She asked, semi politely, for a juice box and when I couldn't produce one began to ask over and over again, louder and more angrily. I felt a meltdown coming on and I started to panic. She didn't want a DVD. She didn't want my Camelback with water, she just wanted a JUICE BOX, MOMMY! 

Then it occurred to me. Moves Like Jagger. Thank you, Lord Jesus for Amazon MP3. I downloaded the song, quickly, and pushed play. She quieted immediately and began singing to it. She knew a LOT of the lyrics. I, however, was listening (I mean, really listening) to it for the first time. I thought, "Wow, Adam Levine is hot."  Then I thought, "Thank God and Adam Levine for saving me from this meltdown." And then,  as I listened, I slowly came around to thinking, "Hmmm. Okay...This song is kind of adult for her. Where the hell did she hear this enough times to know it by heart?" I'm a pretty good sport, and a pretty laid back parent, but the kid is only three after all. And since she's picked up on almost every word, it seemed worth looking into.

So, I started asking around. First, I called Jedi Dad. He said, well, I've had that entire CD on repeat in my car for months since the last time you drove it, so maybe she picked it up that way? But, no, that couldn't have been it, because she was JUST now singing it as if it was new to her. I wracked my brain for weeks while we listened to the song on repeat (after switching almost immediately to the "radio edit", of course... C'mon, guys, I'm not a total heathen). Then, finally, it dawned on me. Karate!! Or, rather, Pocket Ninjas. She takes this class at the gym and she LOVES it, and I think she has a bit of a crush on her teacher to top it off. So I told Mr. K the story of how cute she was with her little impromptu performance of Maroon 5's current hit and I asked him, subtly, if they ever listened to it in class. He readily admitted it. "Oh yeah, sure all the time!" AHA! I have found the culprit! Supermom here to fix everything!

"Well," I said, probably too curtly, "isn't that a little adult for the kids?" And I'm thinking, "What the hell is wrong with this guy playing Maroon 5 to a bunch of 3-5yo kids?  So shameless, this man! Exposing our younglings to such music!"

His powers of deduction were superb, no doubt aided by the uber-bitch look on my face and accusatory tone with which I approached him, and he must have (not entirely-mistakenly) assumed that I was silently criticizing his egregious lack of judgement and inwardly cursing him for putting me in this position where my autistic daughter is now totally hooked on songs that are clearly not meant for children, because he looked at me like I have three heads and said, with a bit of a chuckle and the BEST Gosh-you're-dumb look on his face that I have ever seen, "We listen to KidzBop in class". 

Ha! KidzBop. OF COURSE. That explains why she *also* knows all the words to "Starships" by Nicki Minaj. (Well, not ALL the words, have you ever HEARD that song uncut?! Well I have. Once. Yet another song that we had to buy the "radio edit" for). *And the Worst-Mother-of-the-Year-Award goes to....* 

At least I had the decency to look embarrassed. 

Well, thanks to my exemplary parenting and the fact that KidzBop never even entered my brain, my daughter now has 6 pop songs that she's OBSESSED with. And just like anything else with her, it's a pattern she's made, a comfort zone she's fallen in, and often times the most immediate tool I have to soothe her. We start with a very sweet, "I want to listen to Moves Like Jagger, Mommy?" and then it's, "Can I hear the starfish song?" and then it's, "I want to listen to the Oooh-oooh-ooh-oooooh-oooh song, Mommy?" (Never Getting Back Together, Taylor Swift) and, well, you get the picture. It's the same sequence, the same songs, over and over and over, and none of them are KidzBop because I already paid for them once and we've been listening to them for weeks at full radio-edit-strength, so why water that nonsense down now, right?!

And we listen to the songs all the time. My biggest victories were integrating two new songs into the mix (which is what brought us up to six) and getting away with the "Shuffle" button; as long as we always start with Moves Like Jagger. Both of those achievements were the result of Jedi Dad's encouragement. I think he's worried I'll go even more bat-crap-crazy than I already am, because he was telling me stories about how they use music repetition as torture for war prisoners and that I should see if Lorelai likes Ke$ha because at least it would be something new. FYI, no, she does NOT, so far, like Ke$ha. 

I've learned to accept my minor lapse in judgement and embrace the therapeutic qualities the music has been providing. It really does calm her and I'm grateful for it. She loves to sing. And, I can assuage my guilt a bit by reminding myself that there are plenty of kid songs she's also totally consumed by and I pay my penance by also playing those often, and on repeat (Veggietales song of the Cebu, anyone?!). 

And some of this, I know is totally normal. Music is a tool we use as a part of our daily lives with any child, and especially with kids like Lorelai (hell, I grab on to ANYTHING that works and drive it until the wheels fall off). Who here hasn't sung the "clean up, clean up" song or broken out some Gabba "bath time is happy time" to help persuade a stubborn toddler? But it's escalated, in true Lorelai fashion, and I find the pop music, specifically, bleeding into the rest of our lives, and, as is true with any small child, at times that will result in optimal shame for the Jedi Mom.  

I had a friend over recently and she was doing something with my boy at the dining room table while I was playing Play-Doh (spoiler alert: Play-Doh is likely to get it's very own entry) with the girl. She was "making trains" (seriously, needs it's own blog entry) and I said, "That looks great, Lorelai" and then she looked up at me and said, very matter-of-factly, "I got the Boom Boom Pow, Mommy. These Chickens jackin' my style" and then went back to what she had been doing. True Story.

Fine, at least that evidence of my musical semi-indiscretion was private. 

If I thought I was in the clear, however, I was wrong. 

We were at Walmart two days ago and I have her parked in front of the string cheese while I comb for something that will satisfy my craving and not ruin all my hard work at the gym (it doesn't exist by the way and I got nothing) when, through the fog in my mental peripheral I hear from Lorelai, to a distinct beat,

Yeah..Yeah....Yeah....Young Money....Nicki Minaj....JUSTIIIIIIIIIN!!!!

Among all her many "Lorelai-isms".... she has some pretty serious disregard for her volume, and could care less about using her "inside voice". So of course, though she often has trouble making herself understood, her rendition of Beauty and A Beat is unnecessarily loud and perfectly articulated, drawing some pretty impressed and judgmental staring. Side note: I want to buy a shirt that says, "Put your eyes back in your head, Prissy McPerfect Pants, my kid's not weird she's just autistic." Not just for times like this, although this certainly applies, but overall I feel like it would be a big seller. Although, if we are being totally fair, I think she'd be weird as hell, even without the Autism Spectrum Disorder. She comes by it honestly (says the adult mother who celebrated turning 30 with a Quidditch match and Yule Ball). 

The best part of the whole thing is, Beiber isn't even in my "Lorelai Playlist". He's my ringtone. My little sponge has only ever heard the intro to that song in the midst of our chaos if my phone happens to ring. 

This, of course, is a pretty excellent wake-up-call (pun intended - get it? ringtone? Never mind . I finally start to really understand that her brain is always on overdrive and, even more than the average kid, she really is picking up everything that goes on around her. I can justify the music, because, like I said, we have morals, we listen to radio edits. But it's not just the music. It's me. I have a potty mouth. A lot of adults do, to be frank. With any kid you're going to get the embarrassing repeat of your own verbal gaffes, but with kids like Lorelai it's practically a gift. She forms patterns and sequences in brain and is constantly applying context to what she's hearing. So if you drop something and say "Shit" she's going to deliberately drop things and say "Shit" for days. Just ask Grandma. 

Knowing this about her, and because I'm always trying to be a better parent, I keep telling myself that today will be the day I succeed in using "Mommy" words and quit using "deployed-sailor" words. I'm making laudable progress, but I'm not perfect.

The point really drove itself home firmly though, when, this morning, I see the cat scratching the couch as I'm walking out of the room to put away laundry and I hear Lorelai say very nonchalantly from her high-chair, "Dammit, Oscar."

Well, better late than never. Somebody pass Mommy the soap.