If you notice Lolo dancing and jumping a little less during her show with Bobs at this Saturday's Fingerling Festival in Port Moody, she has good reason.
Lolo is eight months pregnant.
In fact, all summer long, the superstar children's entertainers and Juno-award nominees are planning to scale things back after Lolo - aka Lorraine Pond - gives birth to her first child next month.
But not back too much.
"When you're self-employed, there's no maternity leave," Pond said. "And it's hard to say no [to bookings]. We feel there's some really great momentum right now with our music and the direction our careers are going."
They have, however, made special accommodations for the newborn by recruiting Pond's husband as a "roadie" (that is, the baby holder) and Pond's mother, a 30-year pediatric nurse, to help with their July and August performances.
Pond admits the past few months being pregnant have been busy and, sometimes, emotional.
Last fall, she and Bobs - aka Robyn Hardy - wrote 14 original songs for their fourth album, Connecting The Dots, and, over the winter, recorded them (the CD will be available at the PoMo Fingerling Festival before it hits retail stores later this month).
A couple of the tracks were penned with the baby in mind, Pond said, noting one tune called Family Tree. "There's a line about a brand-new bud is starting to show and a new baby's on the way. That's where I cry," she said.
And there's also a lullaby on the CD that Pond's been singing often to her unborn child.
She describes her pregnancy as "great," thanks in part to her eight years on stage as a children's entertainer.
Friends for 25 years, Pond and Hardy formally began their act in 2007. Four years prior, Pond was an environmental educator with the Vancouver Aquarium and Hardy taught elementary school.
One night, Nanaimo natives and now Vancouver residents were talking about the value of music in the classroom when they realized they should write songs for kids, too.
They debuted their first five tunes at B.C. Children's Hospital and "we sang those five songs over and over again and that was it," Pond remembered. "That was the launch of Bobs and Lolo. We didn't know it would turn into a career."
Luck struck two years ago when, as Hardy put it, their music videos were "put in front of the right people at the right time" for Canada's preschool television network, Treehouse (Cable 43).
Since then, their videos have played in heavy rotation. "It's been so incredible to have national exposure," Hardy said, with Pond noting the pair plan to create more content after her baby is born.
As for their somewhat low-impact summer schedule, Pond hopes parents and their young ones will understand.
"It's the perfect genre to be going through this," said the soon-to-be mom, adding, "I feel so supported by our fans. The parents and kids are just as excited.
"When parents tell their kids that Lolo has a baby growing inside of her, we get the cutest fan mail ever. It's not just [addressed] to Bobs and Lolo anymore: It's Bobs and Lolo and baby."
jwarren@tricitynews.com
