Paul says that kids don't understand that their parents used to be cool. That it's their fault that they aren't any more. They made them this way.
I say Raffi is awesome. That I just sort of missed the window to appreciate him the first time around. In all the concert videos circa 1981, I've been looking for my mom and little brother. They were there, Man. I missed out because I was too cool.
After the boys sat glued to the couch through several youtube clips this morning - well, glued except for the two-year-old's dancing hands - he has this little chugging dance that starts at the elbows. If the rest of him isn't glued to the couch then he'll bend at the waste a bit and bob up and down, maybe with an occasional sway while he chugs the arms. That boy loves to dance.
But as I was saying, after several riveting clips, it occurred to me to make a Raffi Pandora station so that we could do something else while we listened to the Raffi and and so that provided the soundtrack of our morning. It was good. Pandora played us lots of Elizabeth Mitchell which is lovely and several tracks from Barenaked Ladies' kids albums and I discovered that I totally dig Barry Louis Palisar.
So we rocked out to Raffi and friends and cleaned the house and got everybody ready in leisurely fashion because for once we had no plans before noon. At one point I sat down and drank a glass of water and read the issue of Everyday Food that arrived in the mail this morning during a suspicious bout of quiet that I decided to just take advantage of and pay for later. Which is precisely what happened when I found the boys and their cleaned up, dressed, and previously ready-to-go selves sitting in a pool of mud in the backyard. Of course.
So I stripped them down and hosed them off and scrubbed the splatter from Felix's forehead. Naked boys chased each other around for a bit with the hose set to mist and then we toweled off and got dressed again.
And now. Now, the house around me is relatively clean (Thank you, Raffi.) and quiet (Thank you, Julia.) - I just dropped Desmond off at his best pal's house (only a little late after the whole mud pit set-back) and Felix is having a nap and I have had lunch - a leisurely quiet lunch enjoyed all to myself. (That lunch up there - it's leftover pizza and a really big and delicious salad full of fresh lettuce, cherry tomatoes and corn and olives and chickpeas and some leftover pasta and the creamy basil salad dressing - were you wondering when we'd get to the salad dressing?)
This leisurely quiet lunch gave me time to think about Raffi and losing one's cool once one becomes a parent. I was going to see what you thought about all this - if Raffi is certifiably not cool and I have therefore lost all perspective or if in fact you just loosen up and become more open once you become a parent because... well sometimes you have to go with the flow and sometimes the soundtrack to that will be Baby Beluga, but then I took a break and went and listened to some more of my new hero, Barry Louis Palisar, and I'm here to tell you that holy poop that man can be annoying (disturbingly, frightfully annoying). So I have determined that I still have my critical faculties in tact. And therefore, Raffi and I are cool.
Though something else Paul says is that if you have to tell people that you are a thing (as in an old roommate informing us that she was funny) then it's probably not true. Dang that Paul has some smart things to say. Now go eat your salad.
Creamy Basil Salad Dressing
makes: 1 1/2 cups
takes: 5 minutes
- 1 packed cup of fresh basil leaves
- 1 clove of garlic, peeled
- 1/2 cup of soy milk
- 1/2 cup of vegenaise
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice (or the juice of one nice lemon)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Whiz all ingredients in a blender until smooth. Chill before serving - it will thicken up a bit in the fridge.
TIP: The easiest way to measure the vegenaise is to get out your liquid measuring cup - measure the 1/2 cup of milk and then scoop the vegenaise into the milk until it measures a cup.
