Boo!!!

It’s so cool when the kids finally get into Halloween. Last year was Willa’s first and the first that Lyda understood what was going on -- sort of.

Early in the evening we were making the final adjustments to her kite costume (see entry below) and getting ready to head out for some trick-or-treating. Lyda ran back into her room and came out with a dollar that she’d fished out of her piggy bank. She held it up to me rather importantly.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“It’s for the candy.”

When she got a puzzled look from her mother and me, she added, “We need some money to buy candy from the neighbors.”

After some suppressed giggles, we explained how trick-or-treating works.

“You mean they give it to us for FREE!!??” she squealed. She was sooooo pumped.

We met her friends on the sidewalk and started ringing door bells on the block. After a handful of houses, Lyda said, “My legs are getting tired. How many more houses do we have to go to?”

Then after a couple of more houses she said something that is music to the ears of a sugar-wary parent like me, “Look at all this candy. There is way too much for me.” Realizing that’s something we will never here again as parents, Jeni and I took advantage of the moment and marched merrily back up the hill toward home.

Everyone was happy. Lyda had a whopping nine houses-worth of candy (that lasted about three months!!) and we were thrilled that she was thrilled. I love those rare moments when everyone wins.

Here is Cinderella and her sidekick Bop Bop Dinosaur. Happy Halloween!!

Halloween Costumes

The best Halloween costumes are home made, with a little ingenuity and creativity. I love this time of year. Even if we piece together something from the basement to make traditional ghost or witch costumes, it’s the creative challenge I love best.

I saw the coolest one the other day at a show I was playing. I don’t have a pic, but it was an alien inside a flying saucer. This kid had covered two big pieces of round cardboard with aluminum foil, taped the edges, and then “poofed” them apart in the middle to make a saucer. Through a hole cut in the middle, he poked his head that was covered with what looked like a clear plastic ice bucket. His face was painted green. Awesome!

Here’s a pic of Lyda’s costume last year. She went as a kite. Totally cute. It was her own brilliant idea; she just asked me to help build it. So, I taped together two pieces of kite-shaped poster board and cut a hole in one piece for her face to peek through. She colored it herself and we made a tail out of string and fabric. We attached some twine to it and wrapped several feet of it around a wood spool. Her friend Kiera “flew” her down the street as they went trick-or-treating.

So with all of that, this year I’ve lost out to the Disney marketing machine. Cinderella rules in our house. She’s a nearly totally store-bought princess except for the head band and her grandma’s velvet and faux-pearl choker. She is thrilled beyond words. And sooooo very cute, and she knows she looks fine – that’s the best and most important part.

Happy costuming!

Daddy, I have to go to the potty.

Please humor me as I go spiritual on you for a moment…something happened with my little girl that I’ve got to share with you.

Early this morning I woke, as I often do, to the sweetest of sounds. My groovy little four-year-old angel Lyda calling out to me in her sing-song sweetness, “Da-ddy…Da-ddy…Da-ddy…Daddy…” I was stone cold asleep, so it took me a second to register the voice. I stumbled into her room in the pre-dawn darkness and she whispered, “I have to go to the potty.”

We shuffled together into the bathroom, and I waited with her in the dark. When she finished, I carried her back to bed and lay her down and she whispered, “I love you, daddy.” Then she disappeared under the sheets and fell right back to sleep.

I, on the other hand, was pretty much awake, so I decided to take advantage of the quiet and the stillness and do something for me. I wasn’t sure what that was, so I paced around for awhile and looked out the windows on the sleeping world, when suddenly something semi-profound dawned on me – what just happened between Lyda and me is exactly what happens when we pray.

It goes something like this…When we call out to whomever it is we call out to in times of need or times of ecstatic gratitude, we do so like a little child calls out to her daddy. Whether your God is a He or a She or Something-in-between, you call out in complete certainty that you will be heard and that your God will come running to whisk you off to the potty or meet whatever need you have. Sometimes it takes persistence and repetition, or even constant nagging, but if we don’t let up and never waiver in our faith that there will be an answer, our God shuffles into our lives and embraces us and says “My dear child, what is it? I’ll do anything for you.”

This morning I knew what I was called to do. I sat on the couch and creaked into a quasi-lotus. Just sit. Be still and know God. Then, as I breathed deeply in and out, I called out in a whispy sing-song voice, “Daddy…Daddy…Daddy…Daddy.”

Upside Down is a winner!

My latest release Upside Down recently received a 2008 Parents' Choice Award! And it's on the Grammy nomination ballot. If you know anyone who is a voting member of the "academy" please let them know that they'll find my CD on the ballot in Field 18, Category 77, #102.

Here's what the Parents' Choice review said...

"Jim Cosgrove crafts his silly and fun music for younger children with solid musicianship and a genial voice...Overall Upside Down is a pleasant and wholesome kid-friendly CD."

Also check out our other good friends who won this year:

Trout Fishing in America for Big Round World

http://www.parents-choice.org/product.cfm?product_id=25053&StepNum=1&award=aw

Dan Zanes for Nueva York!
http://www.parents-choice.org/product.cfm?product_id=24917&StepNum=1&award=aw

And Grammy consideration for...

Here Comes Brady Rymer and The Little Band That Could (www.bradyrymer.com)



This is currently our favorite driving-in-the-car CD. Brady's music has a bit of Woody Guthrie and whole lot of groove. It really rocks, is easy for adults to listen to, and Brady is a great guy.

Let me know what you're listening to these days.

Living the Dream!

Greetings from a hotel room in Salina, Kansas, and welcome to my blog.

Usually Jeni and the girls are with me on tour, but this week they're home -- Lyda's first soccer games! Since they're not here, I posted their pic instead.

Two great shows this week in small towns in North Central Kansas. Many thanks to the good folks in Beloit and Salina who turned out in big numbers and who totally rocked the house! And a HUGE thank you to Gayle at Solomon Valley Transmissions who looked at my ailing Jetta only to discover that it needs a new tranny! Such is life on the road.

And that's what this blog is about -- traveling and having a blast.

I love what I do!

I get to travel around this great country and sing with kids and their parents. What could be better? And how else would I ever get to experience cool places like the rolling green hills of the Solomon Valley, or the Flint Hills at harvest time, or the fog-draped Appalachians, or the pink-tinted Sandias at sunset, or the south lawn of the White House on a rainy day, or a rockin' school gymnasium in rural Mississippi, or Graceland through the eyes of a two-year-old, or the sand-blasted edges of the Navajo reservation? What makes each of these places even better are the people we've met there.

Please check in here frequently and I'll take you to these places, and I'll introduce you to the many angels and occasional crusty characters we meet along the way. Join in on discussions about traveling with kids. And add your suggestions and tips about better parenting and cool kid music and other stuff.

Stay tuned for my entry on Disney World tips -- and the "Lyda Meter" (a four-year-old's favorites and not-so-favorites.)

Thank you to those who have made these ten amazing years possible. Cheers!