Sunday Matinee on Sesame Street

I had a weird weekend. Contracted a 24 hour stomach flu that hit me Friday night. The less said the better, but aside from what one would normally expect with such an illness intense back pain was involved, fever and dizziness. I slept for a total of 36 hours this weekend. Over a normal three night period the average person would sleep about 24, so it was pretty bad. But it got better by Sunday afternoon. Which was good because I had plans with my daughter Tessa.

After all that sleeping and limited television, including some pre-Olympics skiing and Betty White's 90th birthday celebration (Best joke was from President Obama who appeared in a taped segment writing a birthday letter that said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Betty, you're so full of energy I can't believe you're 90 years old. In fact, I don't believe it. So I'm writing to ask you to produce your long form bitrth certificate."), we decided to go to late service at church. The service was all about using prayer to ask God for healing. Nice timing. So we did that.

Then, in the afternoon it was time for Grandma (Tessa's, not mine) and I to take Tessa to Sesame Street Live at the Peabody Opera House. For those who aren't aware, the Peabody used to be named "Kiel Opera House" a famous and storied venue here in St. Louis. Built in 1932, the building has been closed since roughly 1990 but has been beautifully renovated. And yes, the bear sculptures are still there.

Anyway, upon arrival we were shown to our seats in the third row, but first full row-great job Grandma! Tessa had been to a Sesame Street live show before and the characters came into the audience, Grover shook her hand and Prairie Dawn hugged her last year. So being right by the stage she was quite excited and fairly sure the same would happen again. Well, this is a different show and is in a different venue than last time with more limited space. So only one character came into the audience, the purple honker. He made contact with only three children, and Tessa was one of them. I think she was a little disappointed that no one else came to see her, but Elmo, Baby Bear and Rosita waved to her, so that was pretty cool. She enjoyed herself.

As for the show, it was aimed at the younger Sesame Street fans, and lacked much of the second level that the show has always provided for parents. There were some, of course, but the show strove for audience participation so the higher level jokes fell away a little bit. Having said that, those of us who grew up with the show couldn't help but smile a little when old songs were revisited and reinterpreted for this show. And Bert doing The Hustle in his white Disco suit was pretty funny.

The best bit of theater though I think had to be the start of the show. It opened with Bert and Ernie telling the audience the number and letter of the day. Mission completed Bert asks what they should do next. Ernie's answer is to meet all the Sesame Street friends. Fastest curtain open ever and bam! Ten giant Muppets singing and dancing right in front of you. Simple yet effective. It made the kid in me happy and the real kids ecstatic. The kids behind me were screaming like it was the Beatles on Sullivan. Or maybe they were freaked the heck out by a bunch of eight foot monsters, one of which who loves to eat, I'm not sure.

And therein lies my only complaint. Not with the production but the parents. Obviously it's difficult to anticipate how kids will react, although Big Bird did come on over the PA to tell us it would get dark once the show starts and to stay in your seats. But why bring infants to a show like this? Two or three years old should be a minimum, at that age you can console them if they flip out. But infants? A majority of the kids seemed to be far too young and cried during the whole show. I know it's for kids and only Sesame Street, but why wreck it for the slightly older kids who want to participate and pay attention but can't because your kids are making more noise than what's coming from the stage? And honestly, what can your child  (or more importantly you and your child gain from such an experience? I was able to bond with my daughter, not try to hold her and keep her quiet for 90 minutes. Perhaps babies are free, or they were taking the older kids and couldn't get a sitter, but it still seemed inconsiderate and ultimately useless.

No matter, it was a fun time, and one we'll be sure to experience again, probably with the twins next year. It's good to share these types of things with the children and a nice sneaky way to teach them how to behave in public. Most importantly though, it was lots of fun.

And you best believe we bought some merch....

The Library Story

The thing about sixteen month old children is that they are just learning to talk, and they have no volume control. So when they try to say words, they sometimes come up with something that sounds vaguely like the word they were going for, usually involving the first syllable. And if they're excited, happy or proud of themselves they say it at the top of their lungs. Every parent can attest to this, and they all have a story. This is mine.

Yesterday I had the day off, and took Tessa to the library. She loves the library, she gets to look at books, explore the aisles and play with the toys in the kids section. There are some plush toys that are just about as tall as she is, mostly of PBS and Disney characters. This is, of course, her favorite part.

When we entered the kids section she made a b-line for the dolls, and since she's under 5 she thinks Elmo is the greatest thing ever. So she ran to the toys yelling "Memmo! Melmmo! Memmo!" Which was cute. And then she saw another toy, a giant plush Cookie Monster. Tessa's eyes lit up, she looked at me with the cutest little smile on her face and said, at the top of her lungs...

"COCK! COCK!"

"Um, no honey," I explained, "you mean Cookie. That's Cookie Monster. Cooookieee."

"COCK!"

Daddy's little angel.

She then proceeded to make things worse by running through the library yelling "cock" as loud as possible. And I had to chase her. Being sixteen months old, Tessa is small, and speedier than she looks, which she used to her advantage. And all I could think of was the casual observer who only saw a grown man chasing after a small girl who is screaming something about cock.

All in all, not my proudest moment.