Trying for something more

This weekend I tried to introduce my kids to some history and culture.

I wanted my kids to know that there’s more to life than sports, indoor play places, TV and video games.

So I thought it would be nice to go to a special presentation to celebrate Dr. King. Every year the University of Minnesota puts on this program. It’s at a very nice concert hall, and it’s free! We took Cameron when he was very young, and we enjoyed the singing, dancing, poetry, etc. It was a very lovely evening.

Since that time, every year we’ve been saying that we should go again, but every year we end up not going. This year I was determined to get out of this house and do something different.

Except Melvin felt that it would be disastrous with Ella, and one of us would just be running around the lobby with her and not seeing any of the program. He was probably right, so he opted to stay home with her while I took the boys.

However, when Max saw that Ella was staying home, and found out that she was going to get to ride in Daddy’s car while he stopped at the hospital for something, his initial interest in the show was usurped by the opportunity to ride in Daddy’s car, where he could watch a movie!

After picking up Cameron’s friend British Ben, I drove the 30 minutes into town, paid the seven dollars to park and walked in sub-zero wind chill temps to the auditorium….where I spent the entire time telling Cameron to sit up, to stop flipping his chair up and down, to stop picking his nose, to stop talking, to clap when each song was over, etc. The show ended up being different this year, as it was more of a concert with one local gospel group (The Steeles), so I can understand Cameron continually asking me when the dancing was going to occur. But when I told him that he needed to stop talking because people were singing, his response was, “Why do I need to stop? It’s not like they can’t hear them.” Ugh! The final straw was when we walked out for the intermission. A friend of mine (whose 2 children were enjoying the show quite enthusiastically) told me that she overheard Cameron and Ben say how boring the show was; I decided that I had had enough. It was no longer fun. And my attempt to introduce something exciting and cultural was failing miserably.

So we opted out of the 2nd half, which I’m sure was wonderful, and we headed home.

I think we'll be passing up on those symphony tickets this year.