While most babies today love the Baby Shark song, my son jams to That's What I Like.
In the Philippines, we have this concept called "lihi/paglilihi" which is basically any form of fixation a mother exhibits during pregnancy. This could be a craving for normal or weird food combos, like a mother can be obsessed with ripe mangoes - totally 100% normal - or ripe mangoes with a dash of pepper and a spread of peanut butter - GROSS, but yeah this could happen. This could also be an obsession over an object, person, place, animal or just about anything. Like a pregnant woman can suddenly be obsessed with unicorn plush toys, the color purple, dolphins, or in my case Bruno Mars.
The belief is that, when you obsess over something, parts of it will manifest on the baby once s/he's out. For example, if you obsess over red fruits while pregnant, your baby could have a rosy complexion; or if you obsess over twister fries, your baby could have curly hair. I didn't have any food craving when I was pregnant. I was just really, really OBSESSED with Bruno Mars and his 24K Magic album. I mean who wouldn't? It's a gem, right? I liked Bruno Mars even before I got pregnant, but my love for him just went on a completely new level when I became pregnant with my first born. It almost felt like the baby was asking me to keep on listening to his songs or watching his music videos every. single. day. There wasn't a day in my pregnancy where I didn't watch his music videos or listen to his songs on Spotify. I just had to get my dose of Bruno Mars everyday, otherwise, I'll go nuts - talk about crazy preggo lady tantrums.
So there, basically 38 weeks of pregnancy went by with me obsessing over Bruno Mars - from his locks, his moves, his clothes, his bling, his damn Hooligans, to his golden voice - every single day. And when my baby came out, he didn't look anything like him (thank God! Cause that'll be weird) and he wasn't singing 24K Magic while he was in the nursery. I mean, nothing manifested right away, until his first fussy night at the hospital when none of us could put him to sleep. We were all exhausted and we didn't know what was going on with him. I almost called up the nurses because I was thinking he might be colicky. But then out of nowhere, my husband thought of playing Versace on the Floor on his phone. When I was pregnant, I used to play this on my phone and would turn up the volume a bit and intentionally put the phone close to my tummy so my baby would hear it. And lo and behold, my then 2-day-old son suddenly stopped crying and seemed to have calmed down IMMEDIATELY. That's midway through the song. By the time the song was done, my baby was completely knocked down.
Fast-forward to 6 months later, here we are still playing Versace on the Floor to him when he needs help falling asleep - and it still NEVER FAILS. But aside from that, we observed this amazing fixation he's displaying towards Bruno Mars' music videos whenever we play them on TV, particularly his music video for That's What I Like.
Once this video plays on TV, trust me, whatever my baby's doing - crying, playing with his nanny, or chasing the dogs on his walker - he will turn to the TV and remain glued to it for the entire freakin' song! It would sometimes look like he's not blinking at all.
We would sometimes pick him up and he would dance to this, but most often that not he will just stare at the TV and would seem like he's studying all of Bruno Mars' dance moves for a school show or something. It's funny but it's also amazing thinking this is also him when he was still in my tummy listening to the same song beneath all those layers of fat and amniotic fluid LOL. He also watches normal baby videos like Super Simple Songs and Sesame Street (he loves Elmo and Big Bird), but never with the same attention he gives Bruno Mars.
Other moms would serve me looks considering the inappropriate words in Bruno Mars' lyrics, but hey, it keeps my kid occupied and when you're out of ideas to make him stop crying or going after the dogs' butts, you will thank artists like Bruno Mars who have this kind of magic with kids. Plus, I will never regret if one day my baby looks up to this guy as his music influence. I love Bruno Mars with my whole heart, and say whatever you want to say to me for exposing my son to songs like Versace on the Floor, or Chunky, or Straight Up and Down, but my son loves him and I know for a fact that these songs won't make him grow up as a bad person. If anything, this only proves that my son has SUPERB TASTE IN MUSIC.
So much love for our main guy, Bruno ♡
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