1. The Rockettes
2. Lobsters
3. Drums & Marching Bands
I recorded a PBS special around Thanksgiving that showcased the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, featuring the Rockettes and he has been obsessed with it since (particularly the march of the wooden soldiers). He received this DVD in his stocking for Christmas so I can free up space on the DVR.
As for the lobster obsession, he has taken a great fascination with the lobster tank at Meijer and we take him probably twice a week just to look at lobsters. Every once in a while he gets lucky and the fishmonger will take a lobster out of the tank for us to "pet" (Jack hasn't quite mustered the courage to do this yet). He talks about lobsters all the time though and frequently creates drawings titled something like "lobsters in a tank moving their legs and looking for food."
With regard to drums and marching bands, the interest was born in the fall when I took him to some of the U of M marching band practice sessions during the week or early Saturdays on game day. He constantly asks to see the videos I took during these trips and we recorded the halftime show of the Rose Bowl so he can see, on demand, the red band (Wisconsin) or the purple band (TCU) perform. I tried to buy a video of the U of M marching band but their website only offers VHS tapes. Seriously? I emailed about DVDs but never heard back. (C'mon Wolverines, you can do better than that!)
He was ecstatic on Christmas morning to open a drum kit, courtesy of Papa & Grammy, that matches one Deagan received. Of course, this is the perfect gift for someone to get for a child who does not live with them. I have threatened that every trip back to my parents' house, we'll bring the drums. I have plenty of videos of Jack drumming but will save those for another day.
When I was trying to figure out this week's activities, I saw an advertisement for "Chillin on the Diag: Ice Percussion Concert" on Michigan's central campus. Apparently, this semester is focused on water so this concert was a kick-off to the semester's events. So, braving temperatures of about 11 degrees fahrenheit, we made our way to the Diag following storytime at the library. Jack very independently walked through campus and I had a momentary flash-forward of 16 years' time (nooooo!):
We watched the show for a while and were excited to have pretty much a front-row spot:
As luck would have it, I forgot my Flip video camera so was unable to get any video. However, luckily for me, AnnArbor.com reported on the event and posted a video to their website this morning. If you stop the video at 1:16, you'll see me & Jack on the right side of the screen. Jack has requested that we watch it at least a dozen times today. He's particularly interested in the broken ice. However, after about 15 minutes of listening to the drumming, Jack told me he was freezing so we went inside to one of the main buildings on campus. A few different groups were holding bake sales inside, so I bought Jack two cookies and donated a few bucks to the College Democrats. (This was a major highlight of Jack's day: he got cookies (a rare occurrence) and there were TWO in the bag (both of which I allowed him to eat), they had pink frosting AND sprinkles, and he got to eat them before lunch. This is truly a red-letter day for a kid.)
Only about five weeks to go until D-Day (my due date) so I'm making an effort to ensure these remaining weeks are really wonderful for Jack. Not that he'll remember any of this when I'm old and gray and need my son to take care of me, but one can hope...
