Okay, I know that at 41years old I am already a curmudgeon. I get it. It’s who I am. I must somehow get to sleep at night with that knowledge. And I do sleep at night. Most of the time.

I also know that becoming a dad, even this late in life, is supposed to grind off a few sharp edges, make some clear feelings a little blurrier, make the bristles a little softer. But there are two things in the realm of children that I hated and loathed before parenthood, and I find that I am perfectly happy in loathing after birth. Not afterbirth. Though seriously, guys, ask when it’s safe to turn around or it will be a while before docking in that port again, okay. Serious.

The first thing I hate is children’s theatre. I know, sacrilege: I’m a theatre guy and I should love all things theatrical, but I have found most children’s shows to be boring, insipid, dumbed-down morality tales that leave me feeling both angry at wasting sixty minutes of my life and angry that I still hate children’s shows which must mean I’m an insensitive pretentious jackass.

Actually, there is one guy in town who writes kick-ass children’s’ shows, and I’m pretty excited to take my kid to one, mostly so I can scream “booger” at the top of my lungs in public without all those people looking at me, like they usually do. But that’s another post.

The second thing I hate is children’s’ music. Oh my god. I can barely type the phrase without shaking.

I once heard an NPR article about research by Vitaly Komar, Alex Melamid and David Soldier on what makes people hate some music and love other music. They discovered some-ten things that made people take hammers to radios. Then, and here is the genius, they wrote a song based on the research. A holiday cowboy song sung by an opera singer, accompanied by accordion, tuba, and bagpipes, with backing vocals by—you guessed it— a children’s’ chorus.

My dislike for children’s music stems from the same basic symptoms as my dislike for children’s theatre. That and a slight distrust of the whole genre. I love Mozart, but I wasn’t surprised to hear that the whole Mozart Effect thing was bupkiss.

Anyway, we have this Raffi CD that I was calling Rufie, until someone told me, “Sure, rufies are sedating and make you forget large chunks of time, but they also make you feel good.” Raffi does not make me feel good. Now, I can sit through “Baby Beluga,” but only because it makes my kid look like he’s popped ecstasy in a trance bar — well, that or he looks like Stevie Wonder.

None-the-less, first I gave Raffi, the benefit of the doubt, but he screwed the pooch — as my dad likes to say — when he recorded that unmitigatedly offensive and insipid cover of “Day-O: The Banana Boat Song.” The first time I heard it I wanted to club small furry animals. I lost my mind with aesthetic rage.

Now, I know, I have friends who will ask why I like Dan Bern’s Two Feet Tall. I will go out on limb to say that most of those songs, although they seem to be children’s songs, are actually songs for new parents. There are a couple that are clearly for kids. But the ones that I really dig on are parent-centered.

So it was with a cynical and jaundiced ear that I read a Time Magazine article on something called, god help me, Kindie Rock. I can barely say it seriously. Try it: Kindie Rock. Sounds like a porn star.

And there, in the insert photo of the article, is Marty Beller, from They Might Be Giants, performers of my early nineties mock-anthem “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).” I had to take note.

While reading, I came across the name of a … Kindie Rock …  performer named Justin Roberts. I iTuned him. I listened. I purchased.

I am like totally a middle school girl for this guy’s music!

Okay, the first song I listened to was “Cardboard Box.” It had me. Totally. It made me think of a couple of kid friends of ours who wouldn’t let us throw away a humongous box because my wife had turned it into a house for them.

“Gym Class Parachute” totally sent me back to middle school. In a good way. It was probably the best memory of middle-school that I had. Well, that and the time I took after Joe Chung with a yardstick in art class. That was pretty good, too.

“Snow Day.” Classic for kids and teachers alike.

But the one that utterly sealed it: “Never Getting Lost.” Oh my god. Even thinking about it, the lump is forming behind my sternal notch. I mean, I know it’s going to happen. There will come a time when my wife or I will turn around and our kid won’t be there. And it will be all we can do not to totally lose our shit. But here is that moment from our kid’s eye view.

Justin Roberts’ Jungle Gym is a great album. It doesn’t talk down to kids or parents. Roberts has a real ear for the hook in a sort of Beach Boys way.

It is the kind of album that makes me not only feel nostalgic. It allows me to see into the future; my son and I laying on a grassy hill gazing into the night sky, pointing out our favorite constellations talking about that one time when…

Can you be nostalgic for nostalgia that hasn’t happened yet?

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