Over the weekend we did two things with Monkey. The first- we saw Despicable Me 2 in the theater. It was fun and he was so great!
The second thing we did was that we went to the Out of the Box Festival in Boston. The festival had a lot of different performances and best of all they had a lot of FAMILY performances for free! Mr and I found out that Choo Choo Soul would be there and immediately made plans to take the boy in to see them.
Choo Choo Soul is like the {insert popular band that tours kinda infrequently here} for toddlers. And the boy LOVES them. He used to blow kisses to Genevieve as a baby. This concert was made for him. So, on a gorgeous Sunday morning, we packed up the family in the car and headed for Boston Common.
First of all, the community connection and atmosphere was incredible. There were 12 stages and lots of activities for families to do together. It was refreshing. We rode the Carousel and headed over to the stage, stopping (as is tradition) to get a lemonade from the street vendor. Monkey got his own, and clutched it as if he had found the holy grail of drinks. We headed over to the Park Street stage. Because we had gotten there early, we had our choice of spots, and we set up right up front.... while they were doing their sound check. The boy was excited to see Genevieve, DC and the dance crew. His first "rock" show.
I would like to state for the record that I will gladly give money to Choo Choo Soul anytime they want to come to town. They were amazing during sound check, talking with the families who were setting up shop while they were singing. Then the most glorious part of my son's day came. Genevieve came out and started talking with the kids and taking pictures. My son (ever the charmer) walked up to her and gave her a hug and told her he loved her. She hugged him back, kissed him on the cheek and asked if she could be his girlfriend and he told her yes. Then we snapped these two glorious photos!
He ran back over screaming "Genevieve my girlfriend, momma!" She and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. He was so excited. I don't even think that she understands what she did that day that makes me so grateful, but I am. Mikey now has met a role model that he watches and idolizes and she took the time to spend a moment talking with him. She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek and told him he was awesome and to keep being awesome. I am forever grateful for the two minutes she spent showing my son that he mattered. (Side note, I want to point out, that she is without makeup there, and she did the entire show wearing a long sleeve polyester conductor suit and no makeup. Rock on!)
The show was amazing. It was so energetic and they really get the kids and the parents up and dancing and singing along. She made a comment that she wants to show little girls that you can make your dreams come true and not have to show some skin to do it. By the time it was over, I was willing to pay to see the second performance even though it was free. But we had places to go. So we had a quick lunch and went back to our car... where Monkey was out less than 5 minutes after we strapped him in.
Monkey constantly shows us that he can handle going out and doing fun and new things. He is always open to trying stuff but also he is polite and respectful and that is so important to us. But also... I am happy to do these things with him as we start to create memories that last a lifetime.
