A Little Bit Crazy

Yesterday, we invited ourselves up to our friends Chris and Anali's house for a long over due visit. Chris and Anali already had tickets for a concert of Baroque music performed by the Phoenix Symphony Chamber Orchestra. So, after some hemming and hawing, Moses and I decided that we were brave and we would go. With our child. Who is five. And who didn't nap that day. Crazy? You betcha! But you can never call us chickens! The concert took place in a church with the orchestra set up in the front and partially on the alter. We found a couple of seats in the front row, which meant that the last chair violinist was about two feet in front of us. Yes, not only did we take our child to symphony, but we drastically upped the ante by sitting nearly on top of a performer. Garion did fairly well, all things considered. He was particularly fascinated by a portion of the music in which the violinists played by plucking their strings (instead of bowing). However, he really wanted to have a conversation the whole time and described the music as "sleepy." (If only he had slept, I could have relaxed a little). By the end we were seriously pushing our luck, and I thought I might have to beg forgiveness of the last chair violin dude (who gets extra points for riding his bike to the concert!) who could probably see my fidgety five year old out of the corner of his eye the entire time. I'm afraid that yesterday we might have been those parents that other people were rolling their eyes at and saying, "what were they thinking, why would you bring a child that young to this kind of concert?" I guess it was just our turn to be the annoying parents; I vow to have more patience with other annoying parents in the future on the off chance that they aren't bad parents, they just made one sketchy decision that I happen to be suffering the results of at that moment.
On the other hand, I loved the concert. I so miss that time of my life when I used to go to live performances of whatever, all the time. But I especially love live music. I think my favorite sound in the world is of an orchestra tuning up--there is so much anticipation, I get so excited just thinking about what's about to come. Moses and I don't go to live performances often anymore just because it's hard to get a babysitter. But it occurred to me yesterday that there is no rule that says I can't go occasionally on my own, even if Moses can't come. There's also no rule, for most things, that says I can't bring Garion, although, I might try for performances that will be less "sleepy" for him and more interesting. There is, however, a rule that you can't bring a child under the age of six to Tucson Symphony Orchestra performances--I guess they're on to us.