Dear Laurie Berkner,
We love you.
Sincerely, our family.
Mommy borrowed a Laurie Berkner Band CD from the library at the start of July and it’s still our summer anthem.
Our little three year old girl loves Laurie Berkner. (“No, Daddy, it’s called ‘Laurie Berkner Band.” I stand corrected.)
We listen to her all the time, especially since Daddy put Laurie Berkner (Band) on “her” iPad. We have daddy-daughter disco dance parties to The Goldfish song complete with spinning disco lights for underwater effect . We bought a copy of the “Best of” CD so our little monkey could listen to it wherever we drove. (Now, we need to negotiate “quiet” time in the car.) We had to find a kid safe YouTube app for the iPad so that we could watch Laurie Berkner videos without other stuff popping up.
- Me: We should write a letter to Laurie Berkner.
- Her: Daddy, she’s not in the real world.
- Me: Yes, she is. She’s a real person like Mommy and Daddy.
- Her: [jaw-drops]
Later on, our pink power ranger confirms with Mommy that Laurie Berkner is indeed a real person.
So, it seems like we’re destined to become Laurie Berkner groupies. It doesn’t look like the Laurie Berkner Band has any Canadian concert dates. Their website says the closest she’s playing to us is a solo concert on October 12, 2013 at the State Theatre of Ithaca in NY (view map). Google maps tells me this is just over 4 hours away from Ottawa.
We could do it!
Hop in the car before the crack of dawn. Get to the lunch time concert. Drive back. Tickets are only $20 for adults and $15 for kids. The $75 VIP package for the meet and greet / photo opp with Laurie would be a dream of a lifetime for our kiddo – well, let’s be honest, she hasn’t been alive for that long – but I don’t think we can swing that in the family budget right now.
Mommy asks a very important question: “Is she still going to be into Laurie Berkner by October?”
I think so. We’re into year two of Dora and we still wear Dora everything, although princesses are entering the landscape despite our best efforts. (Thank goodness for Olivia.)
Right now, Laurie Berkner punctuates our life everywhere we go. The DJ requests we get from the back seat of our car are based on track number. That’s how well she knows the CD:
Driving home at night and we see a full moon – cue Moon, Moon, Moon. (The alternative version – track nineteen.)
“Eighteen, please, and then Daddy, you get to pick number nine.”
Eighteen is the alternate version of pig on her head and number nine is my all time favourite: I’m not perfect.
We end with number twenty: Open your heart.
If you haven’t heard Laurie Berkner, and none of our friends have, as a daddy, here are the three things I love the most about the kindie rock superstar.
1. Really empowering messages that I want my daughter to know:
- “I’m not perfect, no I’m not. I’m not perfect, but I’ve got what I’ve got. … I do my very best each day. But I’m not perfect and I hope you like me that way.”
- “I’m me and you’re you. I like green, you like blue. I use tape, you use glue. I stayed short and you grew. It doesn’t matter what we do ’cause I’m still me and you’re still you.”
- “I have a construction hat, it fits me perfectly and when I put it on my head you’ll see what I can be: I’ll use my hammer, I’ll use my hacksaw. Tear down the building, I’ll use a wrecking ball. This hat is my hat…”
2. Funny original songs: “Wait a minute, we’re fish! We don’t ride bicycles! Let’s go swimming…”
3. I like how my daughter sees herself represented in the videos. Laurie Berkner videos usually have a diverse mix of kids and I like that my little girl identifies with someone singing in the crowd.
Dear Laurie Berkner,
Thank you for being such a positive role model for our little girl.
Sincerely, Mommy and Daddy.
The Best of the Laurie Berkner Band is available on iTunes. Yep, we’re iPad people. Deal with it.
[iTunes_button]https://ottawasplashpads.ca/out/laurie-berkner-band-album-best-of[/iTunes_button]
What does this have to do with splash padding?
Not much.
Mommy told me to write about the three splash pads we went to yesterday, but I got side tracked. Here’s some Laurie Berkner music for you:
