Arlo has picked up a favorite hobby in the last year: playing records. I love it. As soon as we come downstairs every morning, he wants to pick one out to play during breakfast. One morning it might be The Byrds; another it might be the Dirty Projectors; another John Lennon. After breakfast, he’ll pick a new one while he plays in the living room. When I go down to our spare bedroom/studio to work, I can hear him switching these out almost all day with Katey. During our time at home this season, his joy in our record player has cast a warmth throughout our home—there is almost always music playing.

When I was in high school, I loved combing dusty record store shelves and thrift stores for a good jazz album. The hunt is part of the fun of building a collection. Before we had Arlo, Katey and I might play a record every few days if we had a night in, or might put one on during dinner. Even then, Spotify was often an easier choice since we’re constantly holding our phones and can just pick a song and set it on the dinner table. But with convenience there’s always something missing, and I think we both recognized this when Arlo took up his own listening habits.

Back in October, we decided to divert our $15 budget item for music (for Spotify Premium) towards buying records and music directly from artists. It was not only because Arlo spurred us to love our collection again, but this article from NPR that I had read. While Spotify is convenient and simple to use, we decided we’d rather pay the artists and labels we love more directly, and to build our collection over a longer period of time. For the most part, we’ve been purchasing vinyls directly on Bandcamp, digital albums from Apple Music, or just heading over to Last Exit Books or Square Records.

Being able to own a tangible artifact produced by creative artists and musicians is a joy—album artwork is half the reason I wanted to become a graphic designer before going to college. But most of all, I love that we get to listen music together more often (which often means at least one person doesn’t like what’s being played). It’s a small, daily occurrence now, and will perhaps even become normal (in some ways, switching records all day for a toddler is certainly tiresome), but I think it will also become a cherished family activity.