If you were to put together a short list of songs for your life, what would it look like? Here’s mine…so far.

Age 6: Hanging out with my sister on a lazy Sunday afternoon, playing Husker Du, waiting for Sunday dinner while listening to Dad’s LP of Elton John’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.

Age 11: At my friend Jill Nelson’s house with our sticker collections, trading rainbows, alligators, hearst, and whales while listening to Kim Carne’s Betty Davis Eyes.

Age14: In the dimly lit cultural hall dancing in a circle with friends, hoping the next song will be slow and that the cute kid from the other ward will ask me to dance, I very well could have been dancing to Kenny Loggin’s Footloose.

Age 15: Heartbroken after moving 300 miles away from my “first true love”, sulking in my room, eating Now and Laters, listening to “our song”, Kool and the Gang’s Cherish.

Age 17: Dancing with my prom date, attempting to keep my bangs standing high in the Connecticut spring humidity, swaying to Ben E. King’s Stand By Me.

Age 18: My first year of college, living at the Glenwood with my 5 roommates, preparing for an evening at The Ivory Tower, moussing our perms, caking on mascara and slipping into our acid washed jeans, we groove to Bobby Brown’s Prerogative.

Age 22: After the wedding ceremony and the reception line and before the cake cutting, my prom date and I squeeze in The First Dance to Eric Clapton’s The way You Look Tonight.

Age 24: Sitting in the newly furnished nursery, awaiting the arrival of our first baby, oblivious to how life would change for us, listening to Everything But The Girl’s Apron Strings.

Age 26: Driving around our new neighborhood in California with a two-year old, trying to get my bearings and looking for the closest grocery store, we listened to Raffi’s Banana Phone (for the gazillionth time).

Sadly, my playlist for the next ten years was all kids music all the time until my oldest hit 12 and developed a taste for pop. Now that I’m a mom, I am uber-anal about what music is played in the house. I hear lyrics that I hadn’t heard before and, although not always shocked, I am often surprised at how hard it is to find music that’s appropriate for the diverse audience that is our family. Someday , when I no longer play the role of lyric nazi, I will rediscover my taste in music and maybe even get an ipod of my own.

Now it’s your turn. What would be on your playlist???