summer adventures, part 3: caspar babypants

At this house, we love Caspar Babypants.

Whaaa? you say.

Once upon there was a guy named Chris Ballew who is the lead singer for The Presidents of the United States of America, a rock alternative band that has seen much success with songs like "Lump" and "Peaches," both of which are kinda weird. There are others by the band I like lots more, like "Some Postman" and "Poke and Destroy." In fact, when I found out I was pregnant with Wesley (a boy), I listed to "Poke and Destroy" a lot and just was encompassed by the hilarity of it all. You gotta hear this song.

Anyway, due to the success of his "big" band, Chris had the financial and creative freedoms to foster the career of his alter-ego, Caspar Babypants. It's a kid band. He sings songs like "Poor Little Broken Truck" and "Run Baby Run" and creatively interesting versions of well-known songs like "Ring Around the Rosie" and "Three Blink Mice."

And we looooove Caspar.

Luckily for us, Chris/Caspar lives in Seattle. And so do we. And he puts on free concerts all. the. time! YAY! Every summer there is a free concert series at a park near us, and we always try to hit at least one or two. Last year the first year we hit the Caspar show, and we got a CD not long after that and basically we have it memorized now. We listened to it lots when Laurel was a newborn, and Wesley needed to get his energy out and "dance." I remember "dancing" in our rental house, where I'd hold Laurel and chase Wesley in circles around this big trunk that served as a coffee table in the bonus room.

So, imagine my glee, when we got to the concert really early and I got to have a chat with Caspar! How cool! When we first got there, I said, "You gonna play Poor Little Broken Truck?" And he said, "I sure can!" Yay! And during the show, he even said, "this one is by request!" Awesome. I think Wesley was a little startled, like, "this guy is playing the song I like, and it sounds like him and all, but I'm not at home and on the computer so this is kinda different."

Last year there was a whole band, this year it was just Chris. No matter, it was great fun. The guy is really talented. Once a little girl was lost and they brought her up to the stage to find her mom, and he just made up a song about Natalie looking for her mom at the park. It was funny!

For several songs we danced in the front, which meant I hopped with a bunch of little kids. Not very many parents were dancing. But I wanted to :-) Gosh it was a blast. The weather was perfect. There were a couple new songs I heard that I really liked, so that was fun. Looks like there are more of his CDs I need to get.

During one song there is this stop/go section, and he had said "stop!" and we all froze, but then he whispered, "you guys see that big big big tree back behind us?" A huuuge tree. "On top of that tree, there is a teeny tiny black spider in a black tuxedo jacket with a sparkly black cane and a sparkly black top hat and a disco ball and a dance floor and he is still dancing!" And then we all had to plead with the little spider to stop. I laughed. This guy has such a fun, creative way with kids.

Oh, anyway, back to my conversation. I bought a CD and a book from him; he said every nine months  he comes out with a new CD (just like a baby!), and his wife does all the illustrations and she has a few books that go along with some of his songs. I commented that I thought it was really cool he was doing this and I thanked him. He said that his "other thing," (the big band) "just wasn't sustainable. This is what I was meant to do." Oh wow, I loved that. I can only imagine how being on tour with a huge rock band is exhausting, and to have him say he loves this more, he feel more like this is "his calling," that felt really cool. Really cool to be there, and be part of this "smaller" thing that means more to him.

Think about it. Anything we do with children maybe seems silly, but it's the best thing we can do with our time. I remind myself of that often. I'm making a resolution to really be there when I'm with them, to not be texting, to not be checking Facebook, to not be ignoring them. I want to listen to them and play with them and dance with them. To Caspar Babypants.

Run, Baby, Run!