One by one, I pull records from the rack, showing the cover to the three-year-old grump in my care. “No,” she says to Amy Winehouse. “No,” to the Mountain Goats. “No,” to Carole King. When I show her the Charles Bradley album her father randomly purchased years ago, she nods and takes two big steps back, preparing to twirl.
Before I had a child, I heard of the witching hour, but I associated it more with a spooky hour in the middle of the night than with the late afternoon. Now, I know that the real witching hour is that time when an otherwise happy child cannot contain their sudden grumpiness. Pediatricians will say it peaks in the newborn age, but I have found that the witching hour still strikes with increased toddler furor, usually right around the time Julio gets home from work and I am trying to put dinner on the table. Our child, overtired or groggy from a short nap, terrorizes the dog and me. Meanwhile, outside it is rush hour, increasing the volume of traffic outside our windows.
Often, Julio gets home and I am on edge, with a dog under my feet demanding her dinner while I try to cook and the child tries to get extra cups of milk, attention, and snacks. Not great.
One evening, I spotted the record player.
The solution to the crankiness, the noise, and the need for ten minutes of distraction to get me through dinner prep was a quick dance party.
Often, our Victrola is used in Bluetooth mode to play selections from Encanto or Sesame Street, but introducing our daughter to the record collection, allowing her to look at the cover art, and to watch the album rotate disrupted the meltdown in progress. It has not always been a perfect solution, but if she won’t choose an album, I do, and the volume of my Dad Rock choices propels her to her room to play while I make dinner. Win-win.
That night, when Julio came home, instead of the usual explosion of activity and frustration, he found our daughter looking through books as his prized Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers album spun on the turntable. It would not have been my first pick (no offense, Steve or Julio), but the bright colors on the sleeve called out to the three-year-old DJ as she selected the evening’s musical accompaniment.
Millennial parents, I know a lot of you have a record collection. Why not put The Shins and Belle and Sebastion to work? The turntable has saved the witching hour for me. At least for now.
If you were having a tantrum, what album would soothe you instantly? Tell me in the comments.
Higher Ground by Barbra Streisand
What a great idea! My album would be Diana Krall.