Moving Pictures

As reported previously in this space, on our drive to preschool every morning I try to play new music for Judah. I believe I've uncovered the prog rocker in him, because from the moment I first played "Tom Sawyer" by Rush, that's all he wants to listen to. Like for weeks now, that's all he wants to listen to. I get in the car and pull out the iPod and say "What do you want to hear today?" and the answer from the back is "Rush". And by saying "Rush" he means "Tom Sawyer".

At the end of the song, I usually try to let it carry over into Red Barchetta. But we've never made it very far into the song before he tells me he wants to hear that last song again. I love hearing that very first sound in Tom Sawyer, but after a while of repeated listens it begins to lose its luster. So one day I decided to skip over Red Barchetta into YYZ. Now the boy rocks out in the back, literally rocking back and forth, fists pumping, copying his dad trying to air drum copy Neil Peart playing YYZ. Believe me, the translation ain't pretty, but it's cute to see the kid go off like that.

And because the repeated plays of Tom Sawyer followed by YYZ never ends in a way that coincides with our arrival at preschool, there's bound to be problems. The boy wants to hear Rush and he wants to hear an entire song. Stopping in the middle of YYZ would never do. It must resolve completely. But I've been fortunate enough to be able to reason with Judah and tell him that we'll pick it up where we left off. And he says it back to me in a very serious manner, telling me that tomorrow morning after brushing teeth and putting on sunscreen and putting on shoes and getting in the car, we'll listen to the rest of it.

So he trusts that I'll stand by my word. That is, trusted until yesterday when I got into the car and the iPod was out of juice. Lucky for me, Lily bought me one of those dock extra battery thingies where you plug it into the bottom of the iPod and it gives it new life. I plugged it into the iPod and a few seconds later the screen reappeared. I navigated to YYZ and pressed play. Judah immediately objected and stammered that it wasn't where we were supposed to be in the song. When the iPod runs out of juice, it also loses its bookmark, losing our place in the Rush tune. Judah let out a full on "noooooooooooooooooo" and started crying. That's the power of Rush.