And......Scene

Cole and I are more or less a match made in parenting heaven.  We agree on almost everything when it comes to raising the boys.  Our main goal is obvious: To raise loving, respectful, generous, kind, well-rounded boys who will grow up to be loving, respectful, generous, kind, well-rounded men.  In our quest to guide our boys down that path, one of our most important parenting philosophies is,

"We want our boys to have life experiences, not stuff."

In order to accomplish this, we plan outings for the boys ALL the time.  Sometimes everything falls into place and the day is a bigger success than either of us could have ever hoped for.  Other times the day goes so poorly the only way it could be worse is if we burned the place down.  But, hey, at least we tried.  When the boys grow up I want them to have a heads full of wonderful memories and not storage units full of stuff.  Don't feel sorry for my kids, they have PLENTY of toys, as you can see.

The toys only look like this between the hours of 8:00 pm and 6:30 am Sunday-Saturday.

Most of our activities are typical "boy" outings.  I'm fine with this because I think that boys should be raised to be boys, but there are times that I just can't control myself and plan an activity that I know I will love and that I hope the boys will like too.  Recently, we had one of these activities.

June 4th we took the boys to see their first musical.  It was called U:Bug:Me, and was described as "a rock and roll musical for kids."  I thought the boys would love it because they both adore music and love to dance.  When I bought the tickets, I couldn't wait for the show!!!  It was in Sullivan at The Little Theatre On The Square.  My Grandma Stanford has taken all of the grandkids to performances in Sullivan, and every time it was my turn I was in heaven.  I LOVE live performances, the theater is so small that there isn't a bad seat in the house, and the cast is always fantastic!  I highly recommend The Little Theatre to anyone who loves musical theater.

The morning of the show I woke up and hopped right into the shower.  I could not wait for the show to start. While I was showering Cole got Ian ready for the trip.  When I got out of the shower,I couldn't believe how dashing Ian looked in his tuxedo.  Okay, it was actually a tuxedo t-shirt Aunt Jess and Uncle Brad brought back from Vegas, but he looked awesome!  Cole thought that the boys' first experience going to The Theatre should be black tie.  I laughed and laughed and laughed at his cleverness.

I was positively giddy all morning.  I was squealing, yes squealing, with delight and high stepping all over the house in an attempt to channel my excitement into something constructive instead of letting my head explode.  I didn't want to get brains on Ian's and Eli's tuxes.  Even in the car I was having trouble containing myself.  I really put my seat belt to the test.  By the time we got to Sullivan, I was so wound up I could have pulled the car the rest of the way to the performance and still had energy to spare.  I totally would have been going with the flow of traffic, too.  I'm talking 35 mph.  When Cole pulled into the parking spot I was flinging the door open before the car was in park.  I felt like a hyperactive kid after drinking a pallet of Red Bull.  I had so much adrenaline coursing through my body that I couldn't even blink, and my smile was so wide that you could see the scars from my wisdom teeth removal.  In NO way did I look like someone who could be trusted around small children, but I honestly could not help myself.  I was that excited!

I grabbed Ian, the diaper bag, and Eli's booster seat and headed across the street to join the line of fellow patrons.  The lobby is of course designed in such a way that all of the show attendees MUST walk past the concession and souvenir stand.  Though I had NO intention of buying anything because impulse purchases like these are for suckers, I scoped out the merch.  They had sugar cookies and punch.  "Ehh.  That's been done before."  Ink pens with glow sticks in the handles.  "Hmm.  I wonder how long the glow stick would actually last?"  Headbands with light up antennae.  "Oh, my gosh!  How adorable!  I wish I had a daughter!!!!  I guess I could buy them for Cambell and Sidney.  How cute would they be with their little headbands?  What colors do they have?  Blue, red, green.  Why don't they have any girly colors?  I guess the red is kind of like a lady bug, but pink or purple would look so much cuter.  Maybe the blue......"  Oh!  It's time to go inside.  I can't believe people get sucked into buying this stuff.  Some people are so weak.

When I bought the tickets I had purchased two seats directly behind two seats instead of a row of four seats. I wanted to make sure the boys could both sit on the aisle and get up and dance when the rhythm finally did get them.  I also thought they would be able to see the stage better if they were both on the aisle.  I had brought Eli's booster seat from the kitchen table because I knew he wouldn't be heavy enough to hold the seat down, plus, he's still REALLY short.

We were only in our seats for a couple of minutes before the show began.  As soon as the house lights were down and the music began, Eli morphed into Kevin Bacon's character, Ren McCormick, and just HAD to dance.  Eli's dancing is not calm and controlled; quite the opposite.  He is everywhere.  He wiggled, shimmied, and flailed in every direction.  He shook his head and clapped his hands with the most gigantic smile he has ever donned.  Eli was absolutely having a ball.  Ian, on the other hand, didn't know what to think.  He was completely stoic.  I had no idea what was going through his head.  I kept asking him if he wanted to get up and dance, but he didn't.  Eventually, he slid down out of his chair and stood in the aisle.  He didn't move a muscle; he just stood there.  He looked at the stage, and his expression never changed.  All the while, Eli was still bustin' a move in the seat right in front of us.  The song ended, and Eli started yelling, "More!  MORE!"  As far as I could tell, Ian really didn't care.

The actors started "acting", and Eli watched intently.  Ian had realized that nobody was sitting around us and decided to walk through the rows of empty seats.  I decided it was alright if he wanted to sit in the row behind me if that would help him warm up to the idea of watching the performance.  Of course, he didn't want to sit in the row behind me; he wanted to run in the row behind me.  For the next three songs and acting interludes I wrestled and wrangled Ian as he attempted to terrorize The Little Theatre like the Phantom of the Opera.  I finally got him to sit during the fourth song and watch the dancers.  I kept whispering in his ear that he could get up and dance if he wanted to, but all he wanted to do was run the aisle so I had to keep pulling him back into row 11.  Finally, the stress got to be too much for him and he yelled at the top of his lungs,
"I want to dance on that stage right now!!!!!"

He could be heard clear as a bell over all of the actors, and oh yes, heads they were a turnin'.  My heart ached for him.  I wanted to yell, "Me too!", grab his little hand, and rush the stage.  I mean, we would have stood in the back.  It's not like I would have blocked the actual cast.  I'm not crazed.  But instead Cole turned around and suggested that we trade kids since Eli was absolutely LOVING the entire production and it was quite obvious that I was not able to enjoy a second of it while enveloped in Ian's bad attitude which was taking up rows 11-15, seats 1-8.

I happily moved up to row 10 while Cole took over in row 11.  Eli and I were clapping and swaying to the music and following the storyline as if we had written the musical ourselves.  Behind us Cole was trying to hold Ian's attention by pointing out every possible prop, light change, and costume accessory.  Ian still did not care one bit about what was going on.  I was so immersed in the show I had completely forgotten that I was a human, and not in fact a bug, until I heard Cole laughing behind me.  I turned around so he could let me in on the joke, and the conversation went like this....

Cole: "Did you see that kid?"
Me:  "What kid?"
Cole:  "That kid the dad just carried by?"
Me:  "No.  Was he sick?"
Cole:  "No.  Not at all.  Wait until he comes back"

At this point we were about half way through the one hour show, and Eli was sick and tired of being restrained in the booster seat.  He needed to get out so he could stand in his chair and swivel his hips and do a few deep knee bends.  Now he was really in his element.  He was able to dance his little heart out and watching him was absolutely hilarious.  The only problem was the seat kept folding up, and he would lose his balance and drop down on his bottom.  Of course, folding himself up in the chair was almost as fun as dancing and the next couple of songs were spent folding and unfolding the chair to the beat of the music.  I fully expected to lift Eli's shirt and see a six pack that would make Mr. Universe jealous.

Shortly after Eli concluded his ab work out, I dissolved into hysterics.  A little boy, mostly likely 4-ish, came walking up the aisle COVERED in the contents of a glow stick ink pen sold at the concession stand.  His shirt, pants, and sandals were completely glowing florescent green in the darkened theater.  His little body could have been used to land planes in the dark.  I felt bad laughing at the kid, but he was COVERED with the contents of the broken pen.  It made me wonder how much stuff is actually in those things, and if they kept him in the freezer, would he continue to glow for weeks the way the glow stick companies claim?  I turned around to tell Cole about it.  This kid was the reason Cole started laughing earlier in the show.  Cole had seen him being carried out by his father, in search of a bathroom, I'm sure.  When he had seen him, the kid had it all over his face and hands, too.  I probably would have wet my pants if I had seen him pre clean-up.  I just kept thinking, "Thank goodness it wasn't one of mine."

Eli had decided that the last few songs needed to be danced like a true wildman, and was back on his feet in the chair.  He was shakin' it, and decided to turn around to make sure that Ian was shakin' it too.  When he did he shifted his weight to the very back of the seat which instantly folded up and sent him rocketing out the bottom.  He was stuck between the back of the chair and the seat of the chair with his faced pressed into the back.  I tried to extract him from the chair, but his sandals were big and clunky, and I couldn't stop laughing.  Eli kept grunting in frustration, and I kept lifting and shifting fruitlessly.  Finally, Cole deemed Ian trustworthy enough to relinquish his death grip temporarily to guide Eli's shoes out of the grips of the theater seat.  Once he was free, Eli jumped right back up and started to boogie down like nothing had happened.

Right at the one hour mark, the show drew to a close.  Eli had had the most fun, but was definitely ready to go.  As soon as the house lights were up, Ian decided that he LOVED the performance, too, and didn't want to leave.  As much as his bad attitude had interfered with his enjoyment of the show, it didn't compare to how much it was interfering with our ability to leave peacefully.  We explained that the show was over and there was nothing we could do about it.  As you can imagine, this did nothing to ease his mind.  We thought we would go outside and let Ian meet the cast, but we quickly realized that he was in no state to be among the general population, so we opted for lunch instead.

This was such a fantastic day for us!  Eli was absolutely in his element, and if Ian had just been willing to get out of his funk about 59 minutes earlier, he would have had a great time, too.  Cole and I both had a great time experiencing another "first" with the boys.  I love adding variety to our experiences so that things stay fresh and exciting for the boys.  I also want to expose them to everything I possibly can so they can figure out what they have a passion for.  And, if their passions just so happen to mesh with some of ours.......well, I guess that will be alright.  :)