March 9th, 2012, I failed as a father or did I?

Ya... Oliver has stared getting his own taste in music. And, it's not identical to my own taste in music. (dum, dum, dummmm.)

As most of you know I am as laid back as they come. I can get along with almost anyone. Different religions, political views, whatever, it's cool. As long as you are cool with my opinion we have no problem.

Music is different and I have been trying to raise Oliver in my image. In the image of, what I listen to is good and we don't need to change the station unless I think we need to change the station.

I turned on the 'Black Keys' in the bathroom while I was getting Oliver ready today. He started clapping when I turned on the music and then stopped, looked at me with a sour look on his face and then started saying, 'no, no, no, no...' Oliver do you want to listen to something else? 'yes'. Then he goes to my ipod and starts pushing buttons trying to change the song. It felt like he was repeatedly hitting me below the belt.

This had happened with Alissa a few nights earlier but I thought nothing of it. Alissa doesn't have great of taste in music, unless I am around. Oliver's actions made sense and I was a little proud of him for standing up for himself. But now this new found independence had gone too far.

We finished getting ready in silence, both musically and verbally. I could barely look at him. Who was this little stranger I had been raising for the past 19 months? Depression started sinking in.

We got in the car and turned on Pandora to 'Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears.' It's a blues band along the same lines of James Brown. It's got a lot of horns and a fast beat. As we drove down the road I could see Oliver start to smile, then his head started bobbing to the beat. (BTW, he keeps a perfect beat at 19 months, no joke) Then he puts his little hand in the air and starts pointing his finger at me and moving it to the beat. (It's called the 'Pee-Paw dance', You may have heard of it. I taught it to him at a young age.)

He jammed to the whole song. Then some awful song came on the radio and he immediately got mad and started yelling, 'NO, NO, NO, NO!' Then he stared giving me the 'more' sign. 'Oliver, do you want more Black Joe Lewis?' 'Yes!'

The kid likes what he likes. And hey, to jam out to the blues at 19 months? And to be able to tell a good blues song from an awful blues song about fives seconds into the song?

Maybe I'm not a failure? Maybe, I have done too good of a job raising him to be independent and confident with his own decisions. Maybe, I am a victim of my own success.  Or, maybe I didn't want to listen to the Black Keys at that point in time after all? Maybe Oliver is actually more in tuned to music than I am? Hmmm... let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

But, I'll let him voice his opinion on the music we listen to for now on. But the first time he wants to listen to Barney or that annoying talking train, he's going to day care. (I have nothing wrong with day care or children going to day care, just a bad joke.)