We thought it wouldn’t happen. We told ourselves, we’ll do things differently. But, yes, Raffi has entered our home. Our 2-year-old, Alexander, loves him. He has a Raffi CD from my stepmother, a preschool teacher. For a long time he never showed any great interest in it. Then about a week ago, he learned how to turn the stereo system on and off. And he realized that he could press a button and – voila - there would be Raffi! Life has really never been the same for him.

Or for us. We walk around the house now humming the tunes (“Down by the Bay” is my favorite). In fact, I heard the same Raffi CD four or five times in one morning the other day. Alexander, for his part, lies on the floor in front of the stereo system, as though he half expects Raffi himself to jump out and say hello. He’s even developed favorite songs, and asks me to play them (“I don’t like this one daddy”).

Our fantasy was that we would teach him to appreciate grown-up music early on, so he would enjoy U2 and Sarah Vaughan in preschool. But when I played a Vaughan song the other day, he said, “Yucky music.” My wife tried another tact: she found a different CD of children’s music and got him interested in that. But this one just isn’t as good, at least to my ears. Raffi may get old, but he’s good. So who do you like?

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