A Treat for Brendan

We are so proud of our boy. We have been working on potty training for the last couple of weeks. And though we can't say it's been going smoothly, we are definitely making progress. As a reward for all of his hard work, I decided at the last minute to take him to the Sesame Street Live show: Elmo's Healthy Heroes. Daddy had to work, so for some extra help, we were gladly joined by Brendan's NaNa and BawBaw. I was a little worried about how he would react to the characters going into the show. You see, Brendan has a very big fear of anyone dressed up. Especially the larger-than-life mascot kind. But I was hopeful that because he knows the characters of Sesame Street so well that we could be ok. So we got tickets as far away from the stage as possible, just so they weren't as frightening. But thankfully, all the worrying was for nothing. He had a blast!

The premise of the show was that Super Grover had lost his "superness" and he needed help getting it back. So Elmo, and a few of the other Sesame Street gang, became super heroes themselves to try and figure out how to make Grover super again. In their quest they learned a lot about exercise, nutrition, sleep/energy, and hygiene--which ended up being the things they needed to make Super Grover "super" again. It was a great lesson for any 2-year-old and it was awesome to see how much he took out if it. When we left the arena, Brendan was jabbering most of the way home about how he had lost his "superness." And all the things he needed to do to get his "superness" back. He even remembered most of the things that had been discussed in the show. It was awesome!

Some of the other highlights:

1-NaNa and BawBaw bought Brendan his own light-up Elmo wand. This was great when the lights went off at the start of the show. As soon as it was unwrapped and handed to him he started waving it around and casting spells. The first spell out of his mouth...."Harry POTTER" (Yes, he is my child too).

2) During the intermission, Brendan really wanted to see Oscar. It was the one character that had not been presented yet. And apparently, his favorite of the day. So NaNa convinced him to use his magic wand to make Oscar come out. So he made up a new spell, "Harry OSCAR!" And he was shocked to see that his spell had worked. Oscar was the next character to walk on stage! The surprise on his face was the kind that only a trusting child can have. It was precious. (By the way, we did know that Oscar would be first to perform after the intermission. We weren't going to disappoint him, if we could help it).

3) Brendan tried cotton candy for the first time. He liked it for a bit, but it was a little too sweet to eat the whole thing. He kept wanting to feed it to Mommy. He thought it was funny when she'd put a huge puff in her mouth.

Waving "bye-bye" as we left our house to go to the show:

Brendan poses with Elmo:

In our seats, before the show. BawBaw, Brendan, and NaNa (This shot took about 15 tries. I finally had to put Brendan's puppy on my head to get him to look my direction. He couldn't take his eyes off the stage.)

At the stage before the show:

"Harry OSCAR" worked!!!!

Cotton Candy: