If you want to know the name, just mail me a twenty dollar bill... No, I'm going to tell you for free. It's the humanitarian thing to do! It's a good feeling knowing I'm making the world a better place for sleep-deprived mommies (and kids)everywhere.
"Bella Espana" is the name of the cd. My little art students are painting to the music, with some splendid results. They are abnormally calm and focused. Some of them are so calm they fall asleep in class. I'll post images of the paintings soon, but I wanted the word to go out immediately about the nap-inducing effects of this classical guitar music.
The first four tracks are music from Bizet's "Carmen" performed by the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. The preschoolers love track four, which is the "Toreadors". They know this music from a Disney tv series called "Little Einsteins". Track four gets them really listening to the music. Then the less familiar pieces can work their calming and sleep-inducing magic. As an added bonus, I don't mind listening to it for a solid week of classes.
My colicky son has finished grad school. My son who perfected the technique of ripping wallpaper off the wall by his crib during naptimes is a senior in college. My youngest will probably never tell the guys in his dorm that he could only fall asleep to music from Disney's "The Little Mermaid" or Raffi songs about ducks. I would have loved "Bella Espana" in those years.
I have one other tip for getting little kids to fall asleep: "You must get in bed now, but you may listen to the baseball game on your radio." Mark Holtz died from leukemia in 1997. I had nominated him for sainthood several years before for his ability to engage my boys in radio baseball. Mark, with his signature expression, "Hello Win Column," did the play-by-play for Texas Rangers baseball games on the radio, with Eric Nadle doing color commentary. Following a baseball game on the radio takes considerable concentration. It's exhausting. Eventually, little ears and brains wear out, forgetting to stretch in the seventh inning. When kids drift off to sleep, many moms have thought, "Hello Win Column".
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