A Night at the Symphony

Last Friday we took the kids the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra’s Lollipop Concert and Instrument Petting Zoo. We told Emily the week before about our upcoming plans.  She could not wait.

We told her we would all dress up. We explained we would arrive and she could try out instruments.  She really really really wanted to play the violin.  We told her we would sit and listen quietly to music, waiting to talk until the symphony was done playing.

Every day she asked, “How many more days until the Instrument Petting Zoo?”.  On Friday morning she jumped out of bed, “When are we going to the Instrument Petting Zoo?!?!?!”  After dinner.  “I can’t wait that long!”

But wait she did.  I’ve never seen her get her socks, shoes, coat, gloves, and hat on faster than that night after dinner.  We parked a few blocks away. “Where is it? Why do we have to walk so far? Let’s run to keep us warm!” It was only 20 degrees.

Emily tried out the violin, followed by the flute.  Nathan tried the drums.  He was exhausted and mostly just snuggled close to Andrew.  The conductor was standing nearby and we pointed him out to Emily.

We started heading to our seats and Emily exclaimed, “Mom, I want to dress up! We have to dress up!”  Ooops. We explained we dressed up before we came, not that we are wearing dress-ups at the concert. The lady behind us could not contain her laughter.  Emily brushed it off and followed us to seats near the front, looking for the conductor.

The symphony began by introducing each instrument.  They played a short classic piece.  Emily sat stone faced, but when the violas started play her feet moved wildly.  Nathan sat on our laps for the first little bit.  Then he discovered he could walk up and down the row.  He exercised his smiling super power in hopes of getting skittles from a boy sitting next to Emily.  The (probably) six year old smiled back, but no skittles were forthcoming. He had the people behind us smiling with him, with his shrieks of excitement.

When we got back in the car after a brisk run, Emily asked, “When are we going to the symphony again?!”

Soon I hope!