Dirty Sock Funtime Band Fun

On Saturday Fiona went to her first concert. The Dirty Sock Funtime Band--which is a sort of ska-influenced kids band (and hence something that Mom & Dad don't mind listening to) that's been on Jack's Big Music Show, one of Fiona's favorite shows on Noggin--played a benefit concert in Pelham for Education Through Music, Aunt Kathy's company. You know parenthood has rotted your brain when you get a flyer announcing a Dirty Sock Funtime Band concert and you drop everything you're doing to a) call your wife who starts shouting so excitedly that her co-workers figure she's just won the lottery and b) call the reservations line that just went up minutes earlier.

Anyway, we all trundled out to Pelham for the 1pm show. That's right about when Fiona normally takes a nap, and at first she was overwhelmed by the sights on stage. She'd never seen live music before, and the band was dressed very colorfully, plus they had a... I guess she's a cheerleader, named Annie who ran through the aisles and danced with all the kids. On the Jack's Big Music Show videos I'd always wondered what the point of Annie was, since she didn't sing or play an instrument, but watching the live show she seemed essential.

After 20 minutes or so Fiona decided she'd figured out what was going on and so she ventured into the aisle to do her own dancing. She stayed out there for about 10 minutes or so, getting pretty close to the stage, before she got overwhelmed by the throngs of kids. She was maybe a bit below the average age, only because the benefit concert was packaged in with a birthday for a five year-old, but there were plenty of kids younger than her (not even counting the younger baby siblings obviously packed along while the older brothers and sisters got to go dancing).

After that, Fiona retreated onto our laps for the remaining 20 minutes or so of the concert. When they did a "freeze dance" number that involved raising your hands in the air and then striking a pose Fiona did that in our laps, so she didn't totally shut down. At the same time, it was a lot of excitement, and it was her normal naptime, so she spent a lot of time sucking her thumb and cuddling close to us.

When the concert was open she met Mr. Clown (the guy in the pink hair, if you clicked on the band hyperlink above) and Annie and picked out a CD. We then went to Target to pick out a present with Gigi's birthday money and headed home for some quality downtime.

As we watched Fiona soaking in the concert early on, Andrea commented on how seriously she was watching, and I replied that I was sure she'd be imitating everything she saw when we got home. Sure enough, we spent yesterday playing freeze dance, doing the chicken dance, and imitating the band falling asleep after "rocking too hard" during one number. Fiona has decided she wants to be like Annie, because Annie's a girl like her, but that Mr. Clown and Mike are all right, too. And I think we're going to be taking her to a few more concerts now that she's got the bug.

Fiona Knows All About Time-Out

Nonna typed this into one of the comments, but it's really a post on its own, so I'm promoting it here. Speaking of which, anybody who wants to post something Fiona-related here should just let me know.

So Mom and Dad have definitely been impressing Fiona with the "Power or Time-Out."

When they visted this Christmas we had a wonderful time playing with our exceptionally bright and well-behaved grandchild! One day, Pop had a small plastic toy of Marvin the Martian that had a little projectile that it shot

While Nonna and Fiona were playing together, Pop was teasing Nonna and shot it toward her…since Fiona was there, Nonna told him that it was dangerous and he was naughty—meanwhile Fiona is watching all this take place--wide-eyed.

A little while later Pop was upstairs doing something and Fiona asked where he was and Nonna told her Pop was in “timeout” and said it loud enough so he knew what was going on.

Fiona went upstairs and and said, "Pop, do you know why you are in time-out?" Pop responded, "yes--I shot the stick at Nonna." Fiona tells him "now you have to go downstairs and tell Nonna that you're sorry and you won’t do it again." Then she accompanied him while he apologized and then I guess she released him from timeout!!

--Nonna

Not Quite Ready for Math

For Christmas Fiona got a book from her Papa and Grandma about opposites. It's a lift-the-flap book that changes a picture that had showed day into one showing night, big into small, near to far -- you get the basic idea, I'm sure.

One of the pages shows the equation "2+2=4" to demonstrate "addition". When you lift the flap, the "+" sign turns into part of the number 4 in the equation "4-2=2" to demonstrate "subtraction."

"What's that?" Fiona asked her mother as they read the book one night.

So Andrea explained that addition is when you make more of something, so that if she held up two fingers and then added two more, she would have four. But if you take something away, like if you hold up four fingers but take two away, then that would be subtraction.

Fiona stared blankly, and the book continued.

The next night Fiona chose the book again for bedtime. She went through the book, pointing out day and night, black and white, etc. And then they reached the page with "2+2=4". Fiona wasted no time:

"I want to skip this page," she announced.

Stage Bound?

On Christmas Eve (hey, it's not quite a month later, can I still catch up on Christmas news?) we took Fiona to the kid's service at Nana and Pop's church. When we first arrived, Fiona was as shy as she always is in a strange place, clinging tightly to her parents.

The highlight of the service was the pageant in which all sorts of farm animals were present at the manger on the night Jesus was born.

For a while Fiona had great fun pointing out the duck, the spider, the mouse and so forth. She kept moving toward the aisle to get a better look at all the action.

Before I knew it, she had worked her way into the aisle so she could get the best view possible. Which was fine.

And then she started walking down the aisle. I put a hand on her arm.

"I want to go up there!" she said, pointing toward the pageant.

So much for shy.

The Voice of Experience

This morning I did a two-for-one in the car, dropping Fiona off at day care on the way to taking our cat Buddy to the vet for his annual checkup, vaccinations and, um, anti-anxiety medication prescription (he's had some adjustment issues regarding a toddler who never stops moving).

As he always does, Buddy meowed loudly from the moment I put him in his carrier -- nothing good ever comes from being shoved in the carrier -- and as I drove, he continued to wail.

"Buddy's meowing," Fiona declared.

"Yes," I replied. "Buddy doesn't like to drive in the car. He's not used to it, like you."

"Buddy!" Fiona said, leaning forward to soothe her friend. "It's okay Buddy. It just gets a little bouncy."

Buddy wasn't soothed.

Just a Little Sacrilegious

First off, no I haven't been posting much lately. Starting a week or so before Christmas with Andrea's birthday and continuing through Fiona's birthday, we face a steady stream of big events. Combine that with the normal obligations of earning a living, plus the great delight we had last week of having workmen traipsing through our home at all hours to install a new bathroom and I've barely had time or energy to post about every amazing thing Fiona does.

Which doesn't mean she's stopped doing amazing things. So here's one from the holidays:

Toddlers can turn anything into a chance for role playing and pretend, so it shouldn't have surprised us when Fiona picked up the pieces in Nana and Pop's nativity set and started playing. Some of it was fairly benign -- Mary singing a lullaby to baby Jesus, or the animals taking short trips away from the manger.

Then Fiona started incorporating other elements into the scene. Bugs Bunny. A gorilla that sings the Macarena (I'm guessing that toy was not purchased this decade). A few airplanes (why make the Magi walk when the miracles of modern transport are available?).

And then one day Fiona came upstairs from playing with the nativity set to tell me that, regardless of what you might have heard in Silent Night, the infant in the manger was still an infant.

"Daddy," she said. "Baby Jesus is being terrible."


Once we flew back east we did a second Christmas with the east coast parents (did I mention we've had a lot of events in the past few weeks?). Fiona quickly found the nativity set in Grandma and Papa's living room, and once again she spent the afternoon moving the various figures around the room.

On Sunday at Fiona's birthday party, the topic of the nativity set came up, and Aunt Kathy told Fiona "that was my nativity set you played with."

And, proving that her foray into sacrilege isn't necessarily permanent, Fiona forcefully replied:

"No, Aunt Kathy. It's baby Jesus's nativity."

Touché.

Birthday Girl

Happy 3rd birthday, princess girl!