The wheels on the bus

When I was in 8th or 9th grade my family went to Disney World. We went on the It's a Small World ride and the ride broke down. So we were stuck on the ride for a seemingly endless amount of time listening to It's a Small World. Fast-forward to present day. Now I'm not stuck on a ride or anything, I'm a prisoner in my own house and have to listen to the Wheels on the Bus over and over and over.

It all began when a friend of mine suggested getting this Wheels on the Bus DVD to pacify Sam while I was putting Matthew down for nap or bedtime. She said her two-year-old LOVED it. So I purchased the 3-DVD set of "Wheels on the Bus with Mango and Papaya" (Mango and Papaya are a monkey and toucan) and it came with a CD of all the songs in the DVDs. Now the music is not just your typical Wheels on the Bus, it is actually many different versions of the song as well as other songs about the bus getting gas or getting tuned up or about sharing and taking turns, things like that. One of the DVDs has the bus going "all through the town" and visiting a zoo, aquarium, farm and circus, therefore, there are many different animals riding the bus and making their animal noises like a monkeys, mice, dogs and cats.

We've watched the DVD maybe two times over the last month, but we listen to the CD every day. Multiple times a day. Over and over and over during Sam's waking hours. At first, I would turn on the CD player every time Sam would ask for the music, but I finally decided to show him how to do it on his own. Whether this was wise or not, I'm not sure. He's been interested in the CD player for a long time and has been trying to figure it out on his own which hasn't been working out so well (for example, he pushes some mysterious button which renders the player inoperable and only Jason can fix it or he turns up the music so loud that everyone, including myself, cry and shake because of the shocking loudness), so I guess now he's appropriately using it at least, but he's using it all the time. 

In the morning, we all go downstairs and Sam shouts, "Bus video!" (video = CD). He runs to the CD player, turns on the tuner, pushes "3" for the Bus CD and it starts playing. Sometimes Sam stands by the CD player and lines up the three Bus DVDs side by side and looks at that and otherwise stands fairly still listening to the music. It's unbelievable how he stands for such a long time just listening to the music. Other times, like tonight, he goes crazy. He runs, jumps, jumps, jumps, jumps, jumps, flails his arms around in his typical dancing manner, occasionally sings along and does motions associated with the song like waves his arms back and forth for the "wipers on the bus" or claps his hands for "doors on the bus open and shut". He listens to the first five songs or so, then returns to the player and presses "3" again to start the CD over again as he doesn't like some of the songs at the end. After his nap the same routine occurs. A few days ago, Sam came down from his nap and said, "Prager show off. Bus video on." I was getting my daily dose of talk radio and Sam clearly had had enough of my boring auditory stimulus and wanted his own. fortunately he can't reach my radio with my talk radio so I remained in the kitchen listening to talk radio while he fed his appetite for the Wheels on the Bus across the room. If Jason was home the TV would have been on too, so that would have been interesting.

For days now, those songs have been going through my head constantly. They're with me in the car, when I shower, when I wake and when I go to sleep at night. What's funny about the whole thing is that I too really like the songs. I highly recommend the CD to any parent as it's music that when your toddler falls in love with it, it's actually fun and not annoying. I really like it. I dance occasionally to the music throughout the day (only to entertain the children, of course) and it's rather uplifting when dealing with toddler mishaps (I'm calling them mishaps and avoiding the terribleness of some toddler incidents) and crying Matthew who is not adjusting well to the time change. I have heard horror stories from other parents who never wanted to hear or sing the Wheels on the Bus for the remainder of their lives, but I certainly do not fall into that category.