Hello Taste Buds

Open the white cupboards here and you’ll find a couple of new items in our household.  Cute petite glass baby jars full of bright orange pureed sweet potatoes or Mommy’s favorite – smooth tart apples. And thank God Lyla’s favorite too since I have to delicately taste test off of the mini rubber-coated spoon to make sure I didn’t nuke it for too long.  Baby food carrots = grossness. I’d rather change a dirty diaper. But don’t even get me started on how those poop catchers have changed for the worse now!  I’d kiss the feet of the genius who invented the Diaper Genie.

As I scooped the first mound of oatmeal cereal into her baby bird mouth for the first time, I realized this was a big deal.  No more would she be solely reliant on just the sweet liquid nourishment that my amazing body could produce, but that this was the beginning to figuring out how to support herself.  No I’m not making the kid hold the spoon the size of her arm and put into her mouth herself quite yet. But it’s the first step to get there.  First step to independence. Sort of a big deal around here.

And I’m trying to rile my taste buds back up a bit as well.  No not ditching the low-carb diet just yet (it’s slowly working, thanks to my well-aware decision that we had to buy a bag of Baby Ruth’s even though I full out knew there would be no trick or treaters coming to our maze of an entrance).  But I’m reintroducing myself to the taste of loving music once again.  I used to eat, sleep, and breath tunes. 

It started as a child, rolling down the straightaway highways with my family blasting “On The Road Again” as we headed to Disney, or Ray Charles’ beautiful rendition of “Georgia” as we’d be cruising back to our stone home just outside of Atlanta. Man I can even remember rocking the walkman as I burrowed in the way back of the Jeep, jamming my eardrums out to The Lion King soundtrack.  Hakuna Matata baby.

Then came high school.  Man o man did we love our Dave Matthews Band summer concerts.  Or blasting the Pearl Jam around a bonfire in someone’s backyard.  Being 16 with the fresh license’s ink still drying, driving for hours and hours listening to mixed CD’s full of Our Lady Peace and The Hip.  Stalking out boy’s houses that we were crushing on. Sailing with all of the windows down after soccer practice and just belting out the lyrics to Typical Situation.  What an untouchable time in our adolescent lives.  And memories wrapped around these particular songs that we couldn’t stop pressing repeat to.

I’ll never forget my grandfather’s river house on Christmas Eve to round it all out.  Gave me much appreciation for the swingers like Frank Sinatra and the rattling voice of Louie Armstrong.  Whenever these classics come on today, I’m instantly time warped to family gathered in the living room with Nat King Cole in the background.  Cheese spreads & Aunt Gale’s peanut butter cookies scattered along the tables.  Everyone having to sit on Santa’s lap, complete with magic glitter to put outside your doorway that night for the sleigh from way up high to see. Rolling laughter from the kitchen & kids banging on the piano. What a beautiful world it was, Louie.

Meeting Troy in college opened my eyes to my mother’s already favorite, that we would all 3 one day jam out to together in front of bone-rattling cover bands – the beloved classic rock.  The Beatles, Deep Purple, The Band, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, Credence, Pink Floyd, The Dead.  It’s standard to learn all about these guys in college though, right? 

After college I started earning money. Holy shit, my bank account balance is above $100. Let’s spend it! The perfect combination to go and experience your first music festival weekend:

Freedom from your parents wing + $500 to burn + a tent = Woodstock Bliss.

Out of the 6 years we were in Bama, we went to 3 Bonnaroo music festivals.  Life changing.  A place where music echoed from 5 enormous stages continuously from noon – 3am.  Heaven for some.  A getaway from the stressful outside world for others.  It amazed me how 80,000 people could coexist for 4 days so peacefully without any rules.  Just tents and coolers.  It was the definition of human nature – what sharing, kind, helpful, dancing, and happy people we all were.  A village with no judgments whatsoever – my kinda place.  I often worry about the unsought judgments Lyla might receive.  Guess I’ll have to turn her into a flower child once a year to experience the kind of love that this Disneyworld for hippies can put off.  Maybe our reluctant grandparents should have eased up on the anti-Michael Lang lectures of forbidding their kids to go to such worlds.  Gatherings like these should set examples on how to behave outside of the gates, minus the brown acid and all.

And as I was creating this post, she just confirmed my intuition that she is a music lover’s daughter by showing me her snazzy moves with some swaying back and forth while I had the newly added music player at the bottom of this blog jamming.  Looked like a boxer bobbing and weaving while on her tummy. Awwww, her first dance!  Enjoy the tunes I add each week to let you know just what we’re swaying to over here.  (I don’t know why these things work this way, but you may need to scroll down to the player to activate the first song.) 

Rock it out my friends!  Peace, love, and Huggies.  I mean hugs.