Knitting Zeal

I'm a cool mom, really!

Someday in the future, my darling son will accuse us of not being cool parents.  It will probably occur in the tween years when we say no to him doing something he thinks is cool, but we don't.  Then I will remind him about just how cool we really are and will refer him to this post.  I'll remind him that at the ripe ole' age of FOUR he went to not one, but two rock concerts for his favorite band at the moment, The Imagination Movers.  

My dear little kiddo became obsessed with the Movers sometime around age three and a half or so.  So obsessed, that he told us to start referring to him as Mover Rich, he called me Nina (because I'm a girl) and his dad was Mover Scott.  That lasted a few months last summer.  He decided he wanted an Imagination Movers birthday party, which we had a ton of fun creating.  When I learned in October that the Movers were going to be in concert locally this past May, I immediately purchased tickets.  We had an amazing time.  The concert venue was small enough that kids could see, the guys came out into the audience, and the kiddo was in awe of the whole thing.  He even brought his Warehouse Mouse with him to the concert.

A few weeks ago I learned that the Imagination Movers were going to be performing shows for two days at Sesame Place.  I debated buying tickets, but since we have season passes, it was really inexpensive.  With the heat lately, I also debated, but then Tuesday night we saw photos of the Movers at Sesame Place on Facebook and my son asked if we could go.  I was lucky enough to be able to order tickets online at the last minute.  The only downside was that dad couldn't take the day off to go with us.  

What a fun concert!  It was  a bit overwhelming to the kiddo.  It was at 4:30, which is the time of day when he is usually really tired, plus the sun was really hot during the wait to get to our seats, but he was in good spirits. We had to wait a while to get into the theater, but during the wait we chatted with our line neighbors and even saw Mover Rich come over in his bathing suit, soaking wet!  He had been having fun on some of the water attractions at Sesame Place!  My kiddo can be a shy kid at times and didn't want to join the other kids to dance during the show, but he was wiggling in his seat a bit.  He wore his Movers b-ball cap and every single Mover came over to him during the concert and gave him a high five or told him his hat was cool!  Several times I had to point out to him that Rich or Dave or Scott or Smitty was standing right next to him!  He was so distracted by everything to look at in the area.  At one point, Mover Rich was standing next to him playing his guitar but my kiddo didn't realize it. I told him to turn his head, which was eye level with Rich's guitar.  And what did my very detailed oriented kid say at that?  "Rich is using Dave's guitar."  I had no idea what he meant, but just agreed.  It wasn't until I uploaded the photos I took that I realized he was right...Dave had used the same guitar earlier in the concert.  

 

See, the kid was right...same guitar!

It was a fun afternoon, capped off with a few rides before we headed home for dinner.  I love having season passes to Sesame Place.  It makes it so easy to drop by for a few hours of fun and then leaving without feeling like we have to see and do everything. I hope the Imagination Movers come back to Sesame Place and the Philly area again soon.  They have so much fun on stage and seem to really love what they do!  

 

His favorite gate on Sesame Street!

 

I know it's Nutcracker Season when I spot the Mouse King!

The first time I saw the Nutcracker ballet performed was on a PBS TV special filmed in 1977 with Mikhail Baryshnikov performing as the lead.  I just loved that Christmas ballet and Tchaikovsky’s score. When I was older, I began going to see the Nutcracker ballet performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. For years, it was a tradition to go with family or friends to see the Nutcracker and that magical growing tree each year.  When I had my son, I recall thinking that when he turned five, he would be old enough to see the Nutcracker performed live.  Since our recent theatre experiences have been so positive, I am excited that this Nutcracker season, he will be five and I can’t wait to start a tradition with him.  It isn’t Christmas to me without seeing a performance of The Nutcracker. 

Artists of Pennsylvania Ballet in George Balanchine's The Nutcracker™, choreography by George Balanchine © The George Balanchine Trust. Photo: Alexander Iziliaev.

This year the Pennsylvania Ballet will be celebrating 25 years of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™!  To kick off Nutcracker Season there will be a special event on Monday June 25 at noon at the Kimmel Center Box Office at Broad and Spruce Street. The first 25 people to arrive can purchase Nutcracker tickets for only $25, which is a great discount.  To continue the celebration through the year,  mark your calendars for more special offers and surprises on the 25th of each month through December. First Niagara is the Presenting Sponsor of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™.

“Pennsylvania Ballet first performed George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker™ back in 1987, and 25 years later it remains our most beloved production,” Artistic Director Roy Kaiser says. “The brilliance of Mr. B’s choreography, the timeless story and score, and spectacular sets and costumes make this ballet a must-see every year.”

Meet the Mouse King!

On Monday, June 25 at noon, join your favorite Nutcracker characters at the Kimmel Center Box Office for activities, special ticket offers, and more! While you’re there, you can become part of Pennsylvania Ballet’s Nutcracker ad campaign. Just pose for their photographer at the event and tell them how you know it's Nutcracker Season. Don't have time for a photo? Just finish the sentence: "I know it's Nutcracker Season when..." and email it to info@paballet.org or tweet @paballet using #pabnutcrackerseason.

To get in the mood for Nutcracker Season, my son and I will be waiting to meet the Mouse King on Monday.  It will be a great way to beat the heat and think cool thoughts! 

 

Disclosure:  The event on Monday is a free event and the details were provided to me by the Pennsylvania Ballet.  I have not received financial compensation for this post.

Weekend fun

This past weekend was jam packed with activities.  We celebrated my niece and nephew's (twins) second birthday with a family party.  Everyone enjoyed the cupcakes!

On Sunday night we went to an outdoor children's concert held at our local park.  Apparently for much longer than we've lived here the township has sponsored a series of free weekly summer outdoor concerts at the park that is approximately 8 minutes driving time from our house.  Sadly, this was the first one we ever attended, but it won't be the last.  The monkey had a great time and was well behaved for the entire one and a half hours of the music.  It helped that he is fascinated with the instruments and that they sang all fun kid-songs.  We think we'll try to bring a picnic dinner next time we go. 

   

The Fiddle Class

This Friday will be our last class in this semester for music.  I've been taking the monkey-boy to Music Togetherclasses for over a year now.  It is ridiculously expensive and I was very close to not going back this past fall, but just when I decided to skip it he started singing the songs from the summer session.  Now, after nine more weeks of classes, he really sings the songs. For each session, there is a different set of songs and we receive a song book and two cds of the music.  I keep one cd in the car and the other I load onto my ipod/itunes.  To say Andrew likes it is an understatement.  He requests songs constantly.  All summer it was "Bitty Baum" that we had to play in the car and house repeatedly.  Thankfully with the current cd he likes a few more. 

To help him sleep at nap and nighttime, I plugged my ipod into a speaker for his room.  Andrew now listens to the entire cd, all 25 songs, when he is going to sleep.  It is a big production each time, as he likes to turn on the speaker and ipod himself.  He must hear the "hello" song.  He does little fishing motions for what he calls the line and the pole song.  On Sunday he sat down on the floor when playing and belted out "oh, my, no more pie..." and even did some of the hand clapping that goes with the song.  It is so stinking cute to see. (Except for last night when he sang the entire cd and stayed up until almost 10 pm singing and talking to the stuffed animals in his room.) 

I suppose a toddler singing isn't all that special, but when it just starts happening, I feel like I can almost see his brain in action, figuring out how this crazy world he is in is working around him.  The fact that he is actually paying attention and learning the songs amazes me, mostly because he does not always participate in the classes.   He is signed up for the holiday session and the winter session as well.  As long as he is having fun while learning, we'll continue it!

The bells class

We started our next semester of music class today.  The curriculum for this set of ten weeks is called "bells" which I have yet to figure out what that means.  Our last curriculum was called "bongos" but only one song in the series ever mentioned bongos, and that may have been a coincidence.  We managed to sucker  invite two friends to this class series, so we have buddies to talk to before and after class.  Andrew was a bit reserved today.  The class was full and I think he is going to be like me and be shy initially in new experiences, unlike those children who walk in and take over the teacher's instrument before she can even start the class. 

Andrew was overly clingy today as he has been sporting an "elevated temperature" for the past two days.  According to the manual from the pediatrician's office his temperature of 100.3 does not qualify as a fever.  He has no other symptoms, other than crankiness and a bad appetite.  He received two vaccinations last week and we were told that he may have a reaction to them in a week or two because they were "live" vaccines.  I always feel conflicted when getting him vaccinated.  Intellectually I know that it is the correct thing to do and that in the long run he is protected from potentially harmful and deadly diseases and illnesses.  It pains me to see him suffer from the injections and the side effects.  I am almost positive that his temperature change is a result of the latest round since it was seven days exactly from the shots that the spike in temp showed up.  Fortunately, if this is a result of the shots, it should pass quickly.  This morning he refused to eat breakfast and crawled up on my lap and fell asleep.  He rarely does this, as he'd much rather play with the hundreds of toys boxes and recycled yogurt containers he has fished out of the can.  He woke up sweaty and with a head full of ringlet curls and a perky attitude.  So we went to music since he seemed better.  This afternoon he has been a bit cranky again.  He is napping now, but now soundly and frequently calls out in his sleep.  Poor thing. 

I just finished a great book by Kate Atkinson called Case Histories.  It was a murder/mystery novel, but not in the typical writing style that I often read.  I am hoping to borrow a few more of her titles from the library.  I also just started reading New Moon, the second book in the Twilight series.  A friend lent me the second and third book--she is reading the fourth at the moment.  I read Twilight a while back, way before there was mention of a movie.  So far, the second book is good. 

Chris gave me a cute frame for our anniversary that has three openings for photos and says mom+dad=me.  I was digging around trying to find photos for it and thought it would be cute to use baby/toddler photos of us with Andrew's photo.  I will spare Chris the embarrassment of posting his toddler photo, but here are two I found of me.  Andrew lucked out and inherited my crazy curly hair, apparently.  The stuffed elephant I am clutching has been picked bare of fur (by me) and now resides in Andrew's room, I think.

   

  Somebody is awake!