What is Ralph’s World, you ask, those of you who don’t watch Playhouse Disney or have any musician friends in the greater Chicago area?

That would be the children’s music wing of what appears to be the Ralph Covert multigenre creative empire. Three out of three people in our household agree that by far it’s the most fun you can have listening to music targeted to small children. You, the adult, will possibly even listen to it out of the presence of your spawn, although maybe not so much on purpose as that you are driving along singing loudly and having a fine old time when you suddenly realize, “Hey! This isn’t one of my CDs! I could be listening to anything I want right now!” If I may describe something imaginary that has certainly never happened to me, nope, no siree.

The website linked above is generous with its audio samples, so feel free to check my claim out thoroughly before purchasing tickets, which you may do at the HoB box office or at Ticketmaster.

As on the first leg of the tour, your child will have the opportunity to meet Snap, Crackle, Pop and Ralph himself. And this time, they’ve come up with a marketing angle so clever that I can only assume it was the final task on this season’s The Apprentice: get there early enough and they will feed your children Rice Krispies, for free!

(Hey, do they have soy milk or rice milk available for that? Inquiring minds want to know.)

Not necessary, though; my kid hasn’t wanted any other cereal since the early, sample-free concerts.

I’m mocking the whole corporate-strategizing thing because I am physically incapable of stopping myself, but seriously, the concerts are a blast. The CDs are worth every penny. And the “Say Hello” DVD will keep even my mere-television-cannot-hold-my-attention boy quietly amused, if you need to get stuff done or have a conversation with your spouse or some crazy indulgent thing like that.

If you have a House of Blues within driving distance, there’s probably a tour date near you.

As a family, we celebrated by going to the excellent vegetarian back-of-a-store restaurant Follow Your Heart for breakfast (I had an eggless, dairyless omelette that was shockingly wonderful; the men had buckwheat pancakes with blueberries and faux sausage). Also, we bought cake there (the chocolate and vanilla cake, which is approximately 50% pudding, is insanely good – keep it in mind if you need to feed the vegan and/or food-allergic and/or lactose-intolerant) for later. No presents or anything, mind you; you don’t want to go all crazy on a fake holiday (right, just have as much sugary food as possible).

Anyway, we came back to the hotel in which we currently dwell, and an innocent victim (I mean, a nice lady) said hello to W. in the lobby. I don’t know that she was expecting a new best friend, but she got one. “Oh hi! I’m gonna take the ewavator upstairs now!” he started out. By the time I got back there to remind him he can’t just pick which adults he wants to go with, he was sharing this tidbit (prepare to go, “Awwwww!”): “I followed my heart an’ had pancakes!”

Perhaps the restaurant would be interested in a spokesboy. Local cable ads or something.

At other points during the day, he informed us he was (a) Zucchini, the Friendly Puppet Bear and (b) a turtle named Steeeeeeeeeve.

Also, he sold me a viola (AKA an inflatable ukulele), hollered at me for playing it wrong, and told me I had to pay for it again. I don’t cotton to dishonest merchants; I had already written him a check for three three three three four four four four, after all. When I refused, he wept copiously and shriekily.

Yep. Definitely two and a half.