Baby's First Play

Dylan saw his first live theater this evening (we made it 5 months... not bad). Chris invited us to the final dress rehearsal of Small Steps, by Louis Sachar. It's the world premiere of his stage adaptation of his book, which was the sequel to his book Holes. (Yes, my husband designed the set for the world premiere. He is just that cool.) The play was also very cool, especially since Louis Sachar was sitting about 5 people away from me. I wussed out after the show and didn't tell him how cool I think he is. Sideways Stories from Wayside School was one of my favorite books as a kid. But I may get a second chance. Kira invited us to a reception with him tomorrow afternoon. I think I may need to swing by Powell's on the way to pick up something for him to sign.

So Dylan didn't make it very far into the show before Chris had to take him out to the lobby for a while. He wasn't fussing. Oh, no. Quite the contrary. He was really happy and excited to be there, and LOVED the preshow music, and wanted to talk with actors when they came out on stage, which for Dylan's part involved a certain amount of shrieking with glee. So he and Chris left for a few minutes, but Dylan did get to watch a good portion of the show from the back.

As my car is in the shop, Dylan and I took the bus downtown. But since that meant we didn't have the car seat with us, no one could drive us back. We had to take the bus home as well. Waiting for a half hour at the bus stop downtown at 9 pm, I wondered about my parenting choices. I felt reasonably safe. The stop and streets were well lit, it was fairly warm out, and there were lots of friendly people around. But should I be carrying pepper spray or a rape whistle or something? I made a mental note of where the alarm button was located, and kept alert about what was going on around me. It occurred to me that my younger self would have assumed some things if she saw a woman waiting for the bus with a baby late a night, and they wouldn't have been complimentary. But I felt like this was a reasonable adventure for us to be having. Dylan napped on my chest the whole trip, and transferred easily to the crib when we got home. He woke up a few minutes later to nurse, get changed, etc. Then he fell asleep face down on the floor. What a sweet muffin.