Sesame Street Live!

Tonight I took Jay to see Sesame Street Live! in our town and he had no idea what was going on. He noticed the Elmo souvenirs on our way in so he knew we were somewhere that had something to do with Elmo. I bought him a program as a keepsake and he had fun looking at all the characters on the cover.

"Uh mommy? What's going on here?"

At the beginning, Bert and Ernie came out to tell us the letter of the day, which was J! (The number of the day was 8). And then the lights went down, the curtains whipped open, and the entire cast was singing and dancing to the Sesame Street theme song.

And OH. MY. GOSH!

The way Jay's face lit up was PRICELESS! It was soooo great and made me melt to see my baby so in awe of something he likes like that!

He started out sitting in my lap but as soon as he realized what was going on he scrambled to his feet and stood on my lap and bounced along to the tunes.

The premise of the show (which was titled Elmo Makes Music) is that Jenny is a new music teacher that has just arrived on Sesame Street. All the Sesame Street characters are eager to take various music lessons from her, however the truck delivering all her instruments hasn't arrived yet! While Jenny is worried about the whereabouts of the truck and why it's so late, the Sesame Street crew decides to surprise her and (after she tells them that anything can make music) come up with various instruments of their own. Mr. Noodle's other brother Mr. Noodle helps Elmo create a drum with a pot and long kitchen spoon. Abby finds a horn, Grover stomps his feet, Cookie Monster shakes a jar full of cookies like a maraca, and others use brooms, buckets and trash lids (a la Stomp or Blue Man Group style). It was fun.

However... it was a bit too long for Jay.

He did pretty well during the first half of the show, either sitting in my lap or standing. We had a good seat - just slightly up behind the floor/ground seats and on the center aisle so he didn't have a blocked view. At one point he was standing next to our seat, holding onto the seat in front of us. Then he wanted to sit. And then... he wanted to crawl and climb on the steps. I wouldn't let him and of course he got fussy about it for a little bit til something distracted him. Fortunately though that was towards the end of the 1st half.

Then there was a 15 minute intermission (why, I don't know - the first half was only maybe 30 minutes at most). At first I had a rough time trying to keep him occupied, but I remembered I brought his Gerber Puffies to snack on so he sat and ate some of those and then played with the program some more.

He was a handful of bipolar during the 2nd half!

One minute he's snuggled up on me like he's going to fall asleep, the next he's fighting me to get down on the ground to climb/crawl on the stairs, and then the next he's laughing his little butt off at something behind us! Rinse and repeat. He got excited again about the finale though and was standing on me and bouncing around like he was at the beginning.

Hubby took this one before we left for
the show - matching Elmo shirts!

He fell asleep on the ride home and napped on hubby while I made our dinner and fed him a later dinner (he had a big, late afternoon lunch though), getting him ready for bed before giving him his bottle. Needless to say, he went to bed a little early - he quite tired from our busy day of snow, shots and Sesame Street!

I'd say he enjoyed himself overall, but like I said, it just got too long for him.

There were lots of parents and kids wearing Elmo shirts like us and we also saw a handful wearing the Cookie Monster version. He also wasn't the youngest so I didn't feel too crazy bringing a 9 month old - I saw several younger babies with parents who brought the whole family with.

I'm sure he'll do better next year though! And maybe even hubby will join us too (hey the dad of the family sitting next to us got and got a beer, lol...) The only sad thing is I'll have to buy him a ticket next year (kids under 1 were free so long as they didn't take up a seat).