Out and about.

Essie attended her first concert last week. Our friend Michele Jacot puts on an annual show called Commingle and this was the third one, actually called Commmingle Three (and that is not a typo.) The last two years I showed some pieces and last year had a piece up for auction but this year there was less art, more singing and performing. There was a silent auction and the whole thing was a benefit for the Cystic Fibrosis foundation.

I love Commingle because lots of people we know perform (mainly Michele herself, being an insanely talented professional classical musician). One of the highlights of the show for me, though, is Cadence. I'm pretty much a squee-squee Cadence fangirl. A capella singing, four tenors, excellent showmen ... dang. It just makes me so happy!

I was a bit leery about taking Essie to the show. I'm not the type of parent who thinks that my baby should be welcome at any function, no matter what. There are some things that just aren't baby-appropriate. Like movies. I wouldn't dream of taking Essie to a movie theatre, believe me. I know there are movie nights for parents specifically so that they can see movies while also bringing the kids, but not in general. So I was worried that the night of Commingle would be the night that Essie decided she wasn't going to be an easygoing baby and wouldn't sleep through all kinds of noise.

I was relieved that Maysie and Dan showed up (which I had no idea they were going to) and took the table beside ours. Then the table on the other side of us only had one guy and he left and sat somewhere else (or left altogether, I'm not sure; he was the representative for the CF Foundation and took off after his speech) before Essie even made a peep. So we were buffered a bit, and quite honestly Essie was pretty great. If she started to make any noise I offered her a bottle or her soother and she quieted down every time. I was poised to dash out of there with her, though, so that she wouldn't interrupt anything or take away from anyone's enjoyment. Maysie and Dan left during the first intermission and Candice and Rich came up and sat in their places so we still had people we knew beside us, at least!

So, I don't know that I'll be taking her to many more events like that, if any. It's stressful for me as her mom to worry about it and I really do feel that if you have a kid you just have to accept you can't take them to certain events that you would have attended before sprogging. If Michele hadn't explicitly told me she wanted us to come and bring Essie I might have sat it out at home. Thankfully it all went really well, but she's only going to get crankier and more opinionated as she grows and I'm not going to take it for granted that she'll behave appropriately at public events like concerts and shows.