It’s no secret that music is in constant play in our home. My husband and I love it. And it surrounds us, inside and out, nearly all day long. So when I was driving to the airport last Sunday to pick up my husband, I was pleasantly surprised, and just a little bit shocked, when flipping through stations, I came upon an opera one, and Pea asked, “mommy, who’s that singing?” I said it was Kiri Te Kanawa, as she is my answer for anything remotely opera-related. And I wanted to sound like I knew what I was talking about. It’s not all Journey and Tom Petty around here.

And a few days later, once again, we were in the car, flipping through the stations, and she heard opera again. And asked me the same question. “Mommy, who’s that singing?”

And it occurred to me that I might stop on that station and let her listen to it for a while. And as she was gazing out the window, in complete silence (so unusual for my little Sweet Pea), I started thinking back on her time in my womb, what we’d play for her. And mind you, I was not the mother that placed headphones up to my belly and piped in classic concertos for my little one. But I did go through a phase where I was way into opera. I think that it had something to do with how moved I was with the life growing inside of me, and so opera seemed to be the perfect soundtrack to that excitement. It’s full of emotion: passion, elation. Even a little anger (I was seriously sick for the first three months. That did make me angry.) And so I wonder how that constant rotation of “O Mio Babbino Caro (from Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi”)” and “The Flower Duet” from the French (French!) opera “Lakme” might have stayed with Pea, albeit subconsciously? Who knows. But I’ve since scoured the house to find those two CDs and dumped them into our Sonos rotation.

Who knows? A budding full lyric soprano in my own household?