I found out The Wiggles were going to be in town and being momma to their two biggest fans, I couldn't resist getting tickets. I knew, though, that sitting in a crowded auditorium full of screaming Wiggles fans was in no way going to work with my crew. A crowd of five people is often too much for them. They'd scream, alright, it just wouldn't be screams of joy and happiness.
So I emailed both the Target Center, who was hosting the concert, and the Wiggles themselves. The Target Center emailed me back and very generously offered me tickets to sit in a suite with the kids, where we could go in the back lounge area and shut ourselves away from the excitement and noise, if need be. We could have up to 10 tickets, so our cousins who were almost as big fans as we were, could come too! I was so grateful to them. The kids tramped all around the suite in their new Wiggles t-shirts.
But The Wiggles. Now they offered something really really amazing. They invited us to come to a "meet & greet" before the show, where the kids could actually meet The Wiggles in person! They were so excited!
Oh alright, fine! The truth is, Mark and I were very excited. Aliza was very excited. The boys ... well we hoped that they'd at least tolerate it. We hoped that somehow they'd temporarily overcome their anxieties and magically see this for the fun and amazing opportunity it was, and enjoy it.
They didn't.
(yeah, Anthony wasn't able to make it to the meet & greet. Something about his having an injury and having to visit the chiropractor before the show.....whatever. Can't believe we didn't get to meet Anthony. We were bummed.)
So meeting the Wiggles was utter torture for them. The rest of us were quite star struck.
Then we went up to our suite and waited for the show. And waited. And waited. And waited.
Problem was, the meet & greet was three hours before showtime. Which means by the time the show started, we'd been in a strange place full of strange people and sounds and smells and textures, for hours. The boys were wildly overstimulated.
The concert began, and as I suspected, the boys had to watch it from the suite, behind closed glass doors. That was okay though, they scampered around and did seem to stand in front of the doors to watch when they heard a familiar song.
We made it through the first couple of songs before AJ threw up just a little bit. I cleaned him up and thought, okay, we got that out of the way, they will be okay now, right?
Somewhere around the fifth song he threw up again, a lot. On me.
I had changes of clothes along for everyone except me. And I didn't fit into a 3T at the time.
There wasn't much else to do but leave. I left Mark and Aliza and their cousins there and brought the boys home. In the car the boys and I sort of changed places. They were calm and relaxed, now that they knew they were going home. I was fairly upset. All I wanted was to bring my twin 3-year-olds to a Wiggles concert and watch them be in awe and dance and sing, like other people's kids. I wanted them to be even more excited about the Wiggles in person than they are at home. I wanted them to understand it all.
Hindsight, as we all know, is brilliant. I know now, they weren't ready -- they weren't mature enough (or in control of their anxieties enough) to handle an experience as intense as a live concert, even one for children. I also know, had we skipped the meet & greet and ducked in there just in time for the concert, I probably could have gotten them through most of the show. It was a long, scary day for them. It was a learning experience for me.
2 comments:
Sometimes we don't know unless we try. Even so, how brave of you to try! ;-)
Reading this made me cry. i just had a simular experience with Yo Gabba gabba. We also baught VIP backstage passes, but it was for after the show. Holly actually does well in crowds thought I thought she might be afraid of meeting the Gabba crew in person as she is afraid of the easter bunny and santa. All day she was saying she was going to gabba house, and when she saw the markee she was exstatic, in the theatre she was running around with her friends thrilled at all the pictures of gabba, whereing her shirt and new toodee shoes and seeing everyone else wearing gabba. We were in 4th row seats (WTF was I thinking??) and she was so excited at the antisipation of it, then DJ lance Rock came on a screen the size of the whole stage she was transfixed, then the crowd started to chant in unision... She started to lose it, but DJ lance jumping out of the screen to a live person followed by two confetti canons just threw her over the top.
45 minutes later after sitting in the lobby and the quiet private VIP room while the show was going on she was still in hysterics. At intermission I gave three backstage passes (70$ each o top of ticket prices) to a friend who didn't spring for them and we went home after seeing less then 90 seconds of the show.
I was devistated, my kid craves stilulation, they had falling bubbles and ballons and sang all of the songs she loves, but it wasn;t until we crossed the bay bridge and she saw we were on the oakland side that she stopped crying and took a deep breath.
We walked in the door at home and she asked to watch Yo Gabba gabba on TV. SIGH. I asked her if she wanted to go back to gabba house, she didn;t understand this was a one time thing... and she said no, stay holly house, gabba tv.
Go Figure. lesson learned. In hind site I should have know, I should have sat in the balcony, I should have waited int he lobby till after the initial frenzy of the show starting. Still a few weeks later I ask her about gabba house and she tells me, mommy no gabba at home, gabba tv.
Thank you for sharing your story, while I know it is so very disappointing, It helps to know I am not the only one who pushes and tries.
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