Holiday Event 3 of 4 - Tiny Tots Special: Holiday Hooray!

On Friday, Steve and I took Owen to his first performance at Benaroya Hall. I told Steve when it was over, "That went worse than I imagined it would go, but better than a disaster."

Owen is a funny kid. I hear from many parents that their child's happiest time of the day is in the morning. It makes sense because they have just slept 12 hours and are supposedly well-rested. Owen...notsomuch. Don't get me wrong, he is generally a very easy-going and happy child. But, he does like time to wake up and ease into the day. And his absolute happiest time is the afternoon and right before bed. He takes after both his parents!

So...back to the TTSHH recap. Because the show was for 0-5 year olds and because most 0-5 year olds wake up early, the show was at 10:30am. It was Friday and since we had to drive into downtown Seattle during the tail end of the morning commute, we left early and arrived with time to spare. We got coffee and sat in the "gallery" (outside the lobby) with a few dozen other parents and toddlers. I was not aware, but there are full-length windows facing the street from this gallery area. These windows provide an unobstructed view of a major city bus stop. Owen was SO excited to see so many "bee's" outside that he kept running up and down the room, stopping at each window pane, pressing his face up to the window and shouting, "bee! bee!" and waiving to them as they drove away.  As he was running up and down the length of the room, he got to the end where there were some elevators. Owen has a few experiences with the elevators at my work. He is always in charge of pushing the button when we need to use them. So, he wasted no time in running over to the elevators and pushing the button for the door to open, running over to look at the open elevator, waiting for the door to close and running back to push the button again. Lather, rinse, repeat. If we had just stayed in the gallery and watched busses and played with elevators all day - he would have been happier than if we were at Disneyland.

But, eventually it was time for the concert (and time to let people actually use the elevators) so we left the gallery area and entered the Grand Lobby. Oh, how sad that made Mr. Owen. He was not in the mood to say goodbye to the busses and elevator and made it very clear to us and everyone else that he would rather stay where he was. But luckily, out of sight = out of mind and we were able to play a little bit on the wooden xylophone they had available for the kiddies to play. It was a cute set up - they had many instruments (most too advanced for O) for kids to try, a coloring station, and of course - vendor tables.

After a few minutes on the xylophone, we headed upstairs to the auditorium. This was the recital hall and it was a nice size for this event - no "bad" seats. It was general seating which was great so we were able to sit on the aisle. We sat down about 3 minutes before the start of the show which was about all that Owen could handle (toddler lesson: when they are in a new and exciting place, they want to explore - not sit in a parent's lap.) When Lisa and Linda (the stars of the show) appeared and the audience clapped - Owen was intrigued. When they started to sing - Owen was very interested. Even when the 3 guest musicians from the University of Washington played songs from the Nutcracker - Owen listened quietly. When Lisa and Linda stopped to do a little dialogue between songs - Owen HECKLED them. Steve summed it up well when he paraphrased for Owen, "Dance, Monkey!" O was in the mood for either: watching busses, playing with elevator buttons, or listening to music. O was not in the mood for narration. Each time Lisa (or was it Linda?) started talking like, "Hey, kids…do YOU know what my FAVORITE thing to do in the snow is?” Owen answered as loudly as possible, “I DON’T GIVE A CRAP…KEEP SINGING!” But it sounded more like,  “EEEEEYYYYAAAHH!” Then they would sing and Owen would listen and then they would talk and Owen would heckle. Sing, heckle, sing, heckle. For about 30 minutes and then it was over.

All in all, I’m glad we did it. He looked adorable in his Christmas sweater and he did enjoy the majority of the morning. Next year, we’ll make sure we allow more time for busses.

No pictures from this event because they said there would be no photography in the auditorium and I didn’t feel like risking leaving my camera in the car, but I have posted some images I found on the internet of the building and the Chihuly glass that was hanging above Owen’s head as he watched the busses drive by.

Holiday Activity #3 - Complete.