highlights:

The children sing with such earnestness and joy. There's no posing or hiding. Our kids in particular just threw themselves into it. Watching Ariana do some sort of hula hoop motion to the beat was priceless.

The songs are the songs of our heritage. Yellow Submarine, Oh What A Beautiful Morning, This Land is Your Land, all songs I've known all my life and that I want my children to know. My brother-in-law jokingly asked (as they spent another ten minutes rearranging the kids on the stage), "And how is this educational?" Well, learning your cultural heritage, that's one.

I now know a critical mass of the kids and parents. So, I felt like I was with my community. It made me happy to see familiar faces in their party dresses and to kibbitz with the parents.

David enjoyed it. He could only really pay attention for half of it, but he applauded enthusiastically, and really liked when they sang Irene Goodnight. "Daddy used to sing this to me," he stage whispered to me.

mitigating factors:

I was really tired. Thursday is a hard day for me because we don't get home from swim lessons until 5:30. We had to turn around and be out of the house by 6:00.

When David stopped being able to sit, I felt torn between meeting his needs--like getting out of there--and giving Rose attention. I shouldn't have worried; turns out she couldn't see us anyway.

Even though they kept to schedule, and the concert was only an hour, we didn't get home until 8:00. David's bedtime routine usually starts at 7:35. Luckily, he did not derail, and despite both children's hyper happiness, they went to bed.