turmoil in tune town

brooke's been doing this thing lately where she's suddenly growing up. she's interested in clothes & not just wanting to wear all natural animal colors anymore & she likes cute shoes. she's been wearing animal ears less frequently and wanting to talk on the phone & skype. these are all good things & nice for me to see because it has been very hard for me to imagine what kind of teenager and woman she would become when i didn't see any signs of interest in "normal" stuff before.

she's also become interested in music lately. chris is a musician and has very eclectic taste, so we've got lots of different stuff playing around the house & in the car when chris is around. i usually hear music & just think it sounds like noise when i'm home, so i turn it off, but when we're driving, i generally tune in to one popular radio station or another.

we've discovered that we can put music onto brooke's DSi & she can listen to it & mess with the songs using lots of special effects, which is a lot of fun for her. in the course of finding some songs to load onto it, she's made some suggestions of songs she'd like that are popular, but once i really listen to them, or look up the lyrics, they're really bad!

when i was a kid, my parents didn't let us listen to "secular" music. it was classical or christian in our house & i always felt like i was missing out on part of growing up that all my friends enjoyed. as a mom, i've decided not to make that rule for brooke, particularly since i don't follow it myself. i appreciate some christian music, but it's certainly not all i listen to. but with that being said, sometimes it's hard for us to find music that's acceptable & appropriate for an 8 yr old girl to be listening to & singing as she plays.

there's the katy perry song "california gurls" with the line, "Daisy Dukes, Bikinis on top. Sun-kissed skin So hot Will melt your popsicle, Oooooh Oh Oooooh." of course, brooke's favorite bit is the one about the popsicle, because what kid doesn't love a popsicle, but i'm not loving hearing her sing about daisy dukes and bikinis so hot they'll melt anyone's popsicle.

she was singing along with lady gaga on the radio when i heard the line, "i wanna take a ride on your disco stick." ick! not something kids should be singing, time to change the station.

then there's the kesha song she wanted called "blah, blah, blah." i googled those lyrics & found this little batch of verbal gems. "I dont really care where you live at. Just turn around boy and let me hit that. Don't be a little bitch with your chit chat. Just show me where your dick's at."

she was getting frustrated that i shot down that song too & she didn't understand what my problem was, so i finally told her that the song was about sex. her face shut up in mid-complaint. we recently had the birds & bees talk, so she knew what i meant. she started backing away from me, but i figured since i had started, i might as well throw in another hunk of disturbing info for her - "it talks about penises." at that point she started waving her arms & telling me that she'd never ask for another kesha song again & to please stop talking about it.

this parenting business is tricky, but i'm thankful for google because it puts all the information i could possibly want or need right at my fingertips. but then again, it puts all that same info at the tips of my brookie's fingers too & that might not be such a good thing as she get curious about more things. damn...