Ginger's Flute

Both of my daughters enjoy listening to music. They have preferences, and sing along, invent tunes of their own. I imagine this is typical for kids their ages. But I think Ginger may be one of those rare children who, at two years old, has 'caught it'. She *loves* music. You can tell when she's in a crowded restaurant and she tilts her head, gets a far off look in her eyes, and quietly listens, her ears searching behind the din to the faint, almost indescernable melody. And after a moment, she'll make you listen for it, too.
Both girls enjoy the car game we play while we listen to classical or jazz and try to identify the instruments. I'll start by introducing one of the sounds, then we all listen closely and wait for it to go away and return throughout the song. Ginger's ability to remember the one instrument's sound for the entire composition is uncanny for a toddler. Just recently she's begun to recognize the flute(her current favorite) in songs when we're not even playing the game! I've also noticed she has strong likes and dislikes: jazz/fascinating, country/tolerable, classical/great, eighties rock/punishable, top 40 pop divas/scoffed at, real bluegrass/likes it, hip hop/loves it, royal tennenbaums soundtrack/rapt bliss. The only gray area so far seems to be rap.
And they dance. Both of them, every day, and today Willow showed me a variation on her favorite: "arabesque on a chair" without falling. I was very impressed/relieved.