Not so Sunny Days

There's enough to update you on to easily fill a week's worth of blog posts but let's start with the main event shall we? Katherine attended Sesame Street Live on Saturday morning and, well, was less than impressed. To be honest, and I know that show is not geared towards adults, Ted and I were not that impressed either.

For starters, we expected the show to be more interactive. These are preschoolers we're talking about, attention spans are fleeting. There was no interaction, accept if you count the characters walking out to the first couple of rows on the floor to greet people (of course we were not sitting in the front row but you'll never guess who was!). This may or may not have been part of the problem. One lesson we learned is that we need to buy seats a bit closer. On the other hand, considering Katherine's lack of enthusiam once the show started, I was glad I didn't shell out a bunch for tickets. The stage was also set up more for the people that were sitting right front and center rather than those on the sides, which meant, because of our location, we could not see the stage background very well. Word to the Sesame Street Live folks, don't have your show at an arena if your set is not designed for an arena. But I digress.

Katherine was excited for the first few minutes when all of the characters came out on stage (Big Bird!, Elmo!, Cookie!) but that enthusiam lasted, oh, about 10 minutes. Then she leaned over to me and asked to go potty. Apparently the preshow potty trip that we took was more exciting and she wanted a repeat performance of that instead. She spent the first half of the show half watching, half crawling all over us and her seat. When the lights came on for intermission, a man with BIG bunch of Elmo balloons positioned himself front and center down on the floor (blantant marketing ploy to self conscious "my child can't be the only one here without one of those" type parents? Oh yes.) K's eyes lit up at the sight of those balloons. So we ventured down from our perch to get one. Ted stayed with at the lobby level and I ventured all the way down to the floor (which, again SSL folks, it is not convient to drag small children all the way down to center stage during a 15 minute intermission, could you have positioned balloon purchasing at multiple places in the arena? Not all of us had floor seats. Even the RBC Center worker who told me I could go down agreed with me..."You mean that's the ONLY place their selling balloons?"). When I hit the floor I discovered two things...number one...that the balloons were $8. E.I.G.H.T. D.O.L.L.A.R.S. Number two...who should be buying a balloon two people in front of me but the GOVERNOR!! Yes folks, I was mere inches from NC Governor Bev Purdue. At first I questioned whether it really was her but then again, being a state employee you see her picture everywhere, how could I be mistaken? There she was, being Grandma for the day. Regardless politically how your feel about her (and I go back and forth myself) it was still cool and probably the closest I'll ever be to an elected official like that! I'll also report that she was dressed very casual but Governor like but also had a pair of cute silver sequined flats...you go with the snazzy style Bev!

Katherine was entralled with the balloon. At which point Ted and I questioned climbing back up the stairs for the second half of the show. K. clearly was not getting much out of it. We started toward the exit door which was met with some resistance. So we went back up to our seats. However, Miss K. took one look at our seats, burst out crying and started towards the stairs. "Do you want to go home?" I got a tearful nod back. Alright, back DOWN all the stairs and out to the car, Elmo balloon in tow (again happy about buying the less expensive tickets). At least we didn't have to worry about traffic leaving the arena. And Katherine has been dragging that Elmo balloon all over the house this weekend. Poor Elmo has taken quite a beating but is still looking great!

All in all, we're not sure. It wasn't a horrible experience but we're not rushing to buy tickets to anything else for her. And there were plenty of other kids there her age or younger who were mezmerized by the whole thing. Maybe she had an off day, maybe its not her thing, who knows. In the near future, we'll seek out some less expensive, more interactive events for her that allow us to go at her pace.