parenting

Do It Myself!

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

“Do it myself!” I could probably live happily without ever hearing those words again. Unfortunately, they – or some variation – are a crucial phrase in every toddler’s vocabulary, including Sprout’s. While I appreciate his need to be independent and all of that bullshit, they’re really annoying in practice.

The phrase arises most often when Sprout is supposed to be doing something that he can do, but isn’t actually doing at the moment. For some reason, it’s the most common in the bathroom. When he’s supposed to be washing his hands, he often just sticks his right hand under the water rather than rubbing them together. Other popular options include splashing in the pool of water or sticking his palm against the faucet so it sprays everywhere. For toothbrushing, he prefers to gnaw on it with his back teeth instead of actually brushing them.

In both of these cases, he knows perfectly well how to do the activity – as I’ve seen him do it correctly – but is utterly uninterested in doing so. He’d much rather mess around playing in the sink or delaying bedtime. However, when I try to help him, he flails his hands and yells, “Do it myself!” While he can, it doesn’t make his futzing any less annoying when dinner is getting cold or his official bedtime is long behind us.

Unfortunately, my options for hurrying him up are limited for both philosophical and practical reasons.

In theory, I could get him to obey by physically forcing him to do it the way I want him to. However, I try to limit my physical enforcement of rules as much as possible to only the most dangerous of situations (like running in the road).

Physical enforcement often goes hand-in-hand with “might-makes-right” and authoritarian parenting, messages that I try to avoid at nearly all costs. The more I can convince Sprout that he should follow the rules because he wants to – or at least feels he should – the more he’ll form a moral compass in the future.

On a sheerly practical level, physical enforcement seems more effort than it’s worth for the stress. In a power struggle between a toddler and an adult, the toddler will always win in some way or another.

For example, the dentist recommended if he wouldn’t let us brush his teeth that one of us hold him between our knees and the other force his mouth open. Because that’s a great way to calm a toddler down before bed! No thank you on the additional half-hour needed to bring him down from a massive tantrum.

In fact, forcing him to do these things can actually be pretty dangerous. When he brushes his teeth or washes his hands, he uses a small stool to reach the sink. If he freaks out, waving his hands and stomping his feet, he could easily fall off it. He’s fallen off “dancing” around, much less throwing an actual tantrum. Slightly cleaner hands done a couple minutes earlier isn’t worth head trauma.

Instead, I try to find alternative ways to motivate him. When he says, “Do it myself!” I tell him, “I know you can – so show me!” Sometimes that works. When he’s spraying water all over the place, I prevent him from getting what he wants by cupping my hands around it so the spray is limited. I’ll only sing the tooth brushing song if he’s actually brushing them correctly. When he does actually do things correctly, I congratulate and praise him heartily.

And sometimes I just breathe deep, put my head in my hands, and wait. Eventually, he’ll do it right if I just give him time. After all, it’s just a phase.

When does your kid (or one you know) say, “Do it myself!!”

Deja Vu All Over Again: Revisiting Favorite Places

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

From bald eagles to mazes made of hay bales, the last few weekends have felt familiar and yet new. With both sets of grandparents visiting, we returned to some of our favorite local places: Meadowside Nature Center, the fall celebration at Butlers’ Orchard, and Cabin John Regional Park. While we had been to them all last year, it was revelatory to see how much Sprout’s reactions changed over time.

At all of these locations, he was far more engaged than before. Previously he would just watch something intently; now he remarks and interacts with it. The animals at the Nature Center were of particular interest, as he loudly pointed out (multiple times), the snake, owl and eagle. That night, we overheard him telling his stuffed animals about the animals he saw earlier in the day. He still didn’t have a lot of patience with my explanations of the feeding habits of snakes, but that will come with time.

At Butlers’ last year, he spent most of the time slowly wandering around, blocking up the little bridge and other playground equipment for the rest of the kids. Instead, he was running around, evading my mom as he darted between sections of a wooden train.

Some of the equipment that he was too small for last year or was too intimating was easily conquerable.
Giant fake spiderweb with children climbing on it

In the past, he reacted to the running, yelling kids and the shadowy interior of Butlers’ hay bale maze by crying. This year, he sprinted down the hallways, occasionally looking back to see if he had lost us yet. He barreled through the older kids, paying them no attention. When we rounded a turn and “found” him, he giggled hysterically. He climbed straight up a ladder into a giant tractor and down a dark slide. He was also a big fan of a fake spiderweb, with bouncy elastic strands. He wasn’t that interested in climbing across it, but spent a good 10 minutes standing up and plopping himself down, the exact same way he jumps on our bed.

Multi-colored play house at Cabin John park with multiple rooms that kids can crawl between.

The cool/weird play house at Cabin John.

At Cabin John Park last year, Sprout stuck to the side with the little kids’ equipment, like houses and play cars. This time around, he still spent quite a bit of time exploring those sections, but was more sophisticated in his understanding. He actually pretended to drive the cars rather than simply spin the wheel. When he saw me whack the bells with a stick, he looked on the ground for a suitable one as well. Beyond the “baby” equipment, he tackled parts of the playground far beyond his current age, scrambling up a rock-wall and inching through tubes in the 5 to 12 year old area. I spotted him on some of the trickier aspects and warned him away from going down ladders, but for the most part, he handled it extremely well. He even slid down a giant slide that I thoroughly expected him to get to the top of and then refuse to go down. It was just as steep and far higher than the slide at Constitution Gardens Park that he was uninterested in only a few weeks ago.

But he wasn’t fearless about everything; there were still a few things that definitively scared him. However, when he was scared, it was a more emotionally complex response than in the past. For example, the Nature Center has a fake cave kids can crawl through that you enter through a very dark, narrow tunnel. Sprout was thoroughly uninterested in going in it last year, but forgot about it as soon as we moved on. In contrast, he was actively frightened by it this year, and got upset when anyone mentioned it later that day. The next week, he showed a similar level of anxiety towards touching the sheep at Butlers’. That night, we heard him say to his animals that he was “a little nervous” about it. I think he picked up on me saying it, but it’s still a sophisticated concept.

Reflecting on it, I think I understand the connection between the two and why they bothered him so much. Rather than simply being scared of those things – which he normally gets over quickly – there may be a level of regret to go with it. He wanted to go in the cave and touch the sheep (he’s touched one before), but was too frightened to do so. While this may be reading too deeply into his emotions, if it is true, we’ll have to think of ways to help him not dwell on those situations. I don’t want to pass my neuroses on to him.

Besides changes in Sprout, we had slightly different options than before at each of the locations, which made for a different experience. In particular, we spent much longer at Butlers’ Orchard than we did last year, due to the fact that we weren’t freezing our asses off. In contrast to last year’s cloudy and wind-blown weather, we had clear skies. Soaking in the warm autumn sun, we went on the hayride where we actually sat in piles of real hay and stopped at a pumpkin patch. Sprout has been mildly obsessed with a “little pumpkin” we picked up at the farmers’ market a couple of weeks ago, so he was in squash heaven. He bounced around looking at all of the options and with my mom, picked out a medium-sized one that he could barely carry and a gigantic bumpy pumpkin.

I love trying new things, but there’s a charm in having traditions you do each year. It’s like a growth chart for mental and social progress for your children.

Guest Post on Simplicity Parenting: The Evening Walk

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

I have a guest post up on the Simplicity Parenting website, the blog of the parenting book of the same name. While I don’t agree with everything in the book, it has a good framework for simplifying your entire family’s life to focus on what you really deem important. My post is about one of our family’s major rituals – walking to the pedestrian bridge near us to watch the trains going by – and how that’s affected my perspective on the world.

Here’s the first paragraph:

“It always begins the same way: a small voice insisting “This way!” often accompanied by a firm pull of the hand. Even if I wanted to, it would be hard to say no to my regular evening walks with my two-year-old son. Because this is no ordinary walk – it’s to a bridge that runs over a railroad track, allowing us to ‘watch trains.’ But I’ve found a simple pleasure in our walks there and back, even if they sometimes make us late for dinner.”

Read the rest on the Simplicity Parenting blog!

(Funnily enough, these walks no longer start with him saying “this way,” as his language skills have improved markedly since I first wrote the post. Now he usually says, “Watch trains!” The rest of the post is still true though.)

Hidden Gems on my Son’s Bookshelf

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

hidden-gems_-less-well-known-but-beautiful-childrens-books-2

Sprout has a lot of books – a consequence of being part of a family of avid readers and a grandchild of a retired teacher. While some are classics, some make us question our mental health, and others are just plain weird, there are a few that are both not particularly well-known and absolutely wonderful. They made their way onto his bookshelf in a variety of ways: received as gifts, picked up second-hand, and discovered at book festivals. They have both beautiful illustrations and lyrical text.

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An Open Letter to Parenting Experts

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

I believe in being positive, especially as a parent, but sometimes I get frustrated. I get angry when people are being oppressed, when someone is reinforcing prejudicial societal patterns, or when people are putting others in unnecessary pain. These Open Letters are either to the people making me mad or those suffering.

Dear writers of parenting books and articles,

I have a bit of unsolicited advice. You’ve given us so much over the years that it seems time to give a little back.

1) Don’t over-promise unrealistic results. Look, we know there’s lot of competition on the parenting advice shelf. In the age of Twitter, you have to catch their eye right away. Nonetheless, it’s nothing but sheer cruelty to guarantee “Teach your baby to sleep (in just seven days)” or “How to eliminate tantrums and raise a patient, respectful and cooperative one to four year old.” While those claims are clearly absurd to people with two brain cells available to rub together, parents that have been waking up multiple times a night for more than a year or are trying to tolerate whiny kids don’t even have that minimum available. (I say this as a victim of the former situation.) Giving false hope is just mean.

2) Don’t shame parents when your tactics don’t work. When you claim your advice will work for all kids, you imply that if it doesn’t work, it’s the parent’s fault. For example, a number of books and articles emphasize how very important it is that your infant both sleep exclusively on their backs by themselves as well sleep through the night for a specific period of time. But there’s a percentage of kids who will never do that! Good luck explaining “but the books says you have to sleep!” to them.

3) Acknowledge yours may not be the only solution. Everyone knows different tactics work for different kids, even in the same family. So of course, a family may need to draw on a whole toolbox of ideas, not just the ones in a single book. But too often, you allude – or even occasionally state outright – that using other methods makes the reader a Bad Mother.

4) Don’t assume everyone has a Leave It to Beaver middle-class nuclear family. Increasing numbers of families have diverse structures, with single parents raising kids on their own, grandparents helping out, same-sex couples raising kids, and many more combinations. Parents may have high or very low incomes. The primary caregiver may be a mother or father or not even a biological parent at all. Yet you often give advice that’s only helpful, applicable or realistic for a small portion of the population. You recommend absurd amounts of unnecessary baby gear, assume a broad variety of available childcare options (FYI, nannies and au pairs are not affordable for most families), assume the mom will be doing most of the work, and give advice only helpful to parents with 9 to 5 schedules. This structure makes the rest of us feel like we don’t matter or even exist.

5) Don’t recommend – nay, require – contradictory actions in the same book. My “favorite” example is from the tome of pregnant lady-shaming, What to Expect When You’re Expecting. The authors recommend to eat locally as much as possible. Then just a few pages later, the same book recommends pregnant women eat 4 servings of fruit a day, especially mangos. Unless you actually live in South America, that’s ridiculous. Some good copy editing will save a lot of parents some head-banging, and not of the heavy-metal kind.

6) Don’t use the word “should” to refer to a child’s behavior unless you’re actually referring to a developmental milestone. Modern-day parents get just a tiny bit obsessive about their kids hitting their milestones. These days the only things we can turn to to know if our kid is “normal” is other parents, our pediatrician, or parenting books. While there are certain ones that it’s important to meet, it really muddies the waters when parenting books just make up new ones. For example, there’s no set standard for when your kid must sleep through the night. There are some adults who don’t sleep through the night!

7) Never use the term “mother’s intuition.” Most moms arrive home and think, “What the hell do I do now?” The sole extent of my “inborn knowledge” was “Oh crap, my baby is crying!” I knew I should do something to calm him, but what I should do eluded me. Suggesting that I should have some magical ability to know what to do made me even more insecure. If parenting intuition exists, it’s from the slow, beautiful process of learning to know a child’s personality and unique traits. It’s much more helpful to reassure new parents that it will get easier over time as they get to know their child.

Now all of this might make me sound rather, well, motherly. But I’m pretty sure you can handle it. After all, you’ve given plenty of “shoulds” and “should-nots” to us.

Ridiculous Moments in Parenting: Last Week Edition

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Last week, I wasn’t even at home and yet the shenanigans were even more absurd than usual. Because I was at a work conference all week, Chris had to play stay-at-home single parent to a two-year-old, an exceptionally challenging job. Here were just a few of the ridiculous things that happened.

– Sprout declaring that Kraft macaroni and cheese was “delicious,” a complement much higher than that he usually bestows on any food: This is despite the fact that Chris was a professional cook in a very expensive restaurant before leaving to stay home. Now, Sprout eats way more vegetables than the average toddler (hurray!), but the fact that Kraft Mac and Cheese was the height of culinary prowess according to him was rather horrifying and funny. No accounting for taste.

– Doing the Hokey Pokey by myself in a hotel room: Keeping the attention of a toddler over FaceTime is challenging at best. To try to keep Sprout from wandering off, I started listing off songs he might want me to sing. After asking about “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider,” “10 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed,” and “House at Pooh Corner,” I finally scored with the Hokey Pokey. Which led to me sticking my right foot in and right foot out and turning all about by myself next to my hotel bed and holding out an iPhone trying not to trip.

– Spout taking a giant bite out of a hat: Chris is a big Green Bay Packers fan, so one of our baby shower gifts was a kid-sized cheese hat. Chris happened to find it in Sprout’s closet and showed it to him, commenting “This is a cheese hat.” Sprout replied, “Cheese hat?” and then “chomp.” He managed to get a good chunk out of it before Chris could wrest it away from him and explain it was “play cheese!”

– Experiencing our first hysterically funny toddler tantrum: The other day, Sprout was really upset for no apparent reason. The answer to every question we asked was “no.” The epitome was him running in place like he was in the world’s worst gym class, flailing his arms like a rabid chicken. I always thought that parents taking photos of their kids crying was kind of mean, but I finally understood as I tried to contain my laughter.

– Chasing after a toddler mid-puke holding out a Tupperware container: For some reason, Sprout often gets sick when I go out of town. Luckily for Chris, he waited until the day after I got back to do so this time. Fortunately for everyone, the bout only lasted three hours and he was fine by the afternoon.

– Going on a bicycle ride by myself on my own bike: While this used to be an extremely common occurrence, it definitely felt like a personal accomplishment in the same sense that Beth Woolsey of Five Kids is a Lot of Kids describes being able to clip her nails. I ride back and forth to the Metro every day, but that’s on clunky, heavy Capital Bikeshare bikes. When I do have the luxury of using my own well-loved Bianchi hybrid, it’s almost always dragging an extra 50 pounds between the trailer and the growing toddler. Being able to go on a ride and worry about no one else besides myself was truly glorious, especially because I rode through the well-shaded Rock Creek Park.

– Bike grease making its way onto my child’s face and very most likely, inside his mouth: Later the same day, we took a very short ride to our little downtown area. As I was putting my bike away, Sprout started running his fingers over the chain, despite my protests. Then, because he’s teething his molars in and the simple fact that he’s two, he promptly put his hand in his mouth. (At least I’m assuming he did – I didn’t actually see it, but he did have grease on the side of his mouth.) As I know bike grease is definitely not non-toxic, that was a super awesome parenting fail. Hopefully, he won’t be puking again tomorrow.

What were some of the most ridiculous things that happened to you this week?

Ocean City, MD: Fun and Sun with a Toddler and Grandparents

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

As a kid, I adored the ticky-tacky tourist trap that was and is Lake George Village. Nestled in the foothills of the Adirondacks, I loved everything from its elaborate mini-golf courses to its flashing arcades. So of course, I love Ocean City, Maryland, which is much like Lake George except bigger and more popular with an actual beach to boot. We had hoped to camp at nearby Assateague National Park, but when realized the entire season was booked up back in May, I joked to my mom about my parents taking us to Ocean City. Much to my pleasant surprise, she took me up on my suggestion, leading us to all head out to Ocean City this past weekend. As this was Sprout’s first time, he had a variety of reactions, some of which were more unpredictable than others.

Beach and hotels of Ocean City

What Sprout Liked that I Exected Him to Like

Carnival rides: After our experience at the County Fair, I fully expected him to enjoy the even bigger Ferris wheel at the end of the boardwalk. Unfortunately, it turned out that the view wasn’t as good than at the Fair. At night, the dark swallowed the grandeur of the ocean. Nonetheless, both it and the double-decker Merry Go Round were big hits. It’s amazing how Sprout’s reactions to rides have evolved, from the seemingly impassive reception at Disney to the engaged sense of wonder now. While his facial expressions haven’t really changed much, the subtle differences are obvious.

Arcade games: Chris and I introduced Sprout to a fundamental part of our childhoods that had little educational or social benefit – video game arcades! While he liked the percussion adaptation of Dance Dance Revolution, the big hit was skeeball. As Chris and I played in our own lanes, my mom rolled the balls with Sprout hand-over-hand and scored over 100 points! Between the three of us, we had enough tickets to buy a little googly-eyed ring for him, which he clutched the rest of the day. Finding games that he would like brought back some of my childhood joy playing video games, especially since so many of them are just glorified slot machines now.

Ice cream: Okay, this was a gimme.

Spending time with his grandparents: A bit of a gimme too, but I love the relationship they have. My grandparents lived far away from me in a time before FaceTime and we always had to visit them, not the other way around. I really appreciate that my parents want to have a solid bond with him and are willing to put in the time to do so. (This is true of Chris’s parents as well.)

Things I Expected Sprout to Like But He Didn’t

Going in the ocean: Sprout didn’t mind standing on the very edge and allowing the waves to occasionally reach his toes, but he responded “Nope!” every time I asked him if he wanted to go further. He found the feeling of the ground washing away beneath his feet quite disconcerting. He expressed a clear interest in watching the waves and placing shells in the surf to wash away, but was intimidated by the size and power of the waves. (In some ways, it wasn’t all that different from the cows at the County Fair – better at a distance.) I hope that as he gets bigger, he learns to appreciate it, as I adore the power of diving into the crashing waves like a clumsy dolphin.

Building sand castles: I was gung-ho on sand castle building, with a whole giant bag filled with toys. As soon as we sat down on the beach, I started filling the molds with wet sand and flipping them over to create an elaborate castle. But Sprout was totally uninterested in helping. Instead, he just wanted to dump water all over my creations, resulting in them looking less like medieval buildings and more like Gaudi’s architecture. As he wasn’t willing to get the water himself, he would request “More water?” in his little voice, sending myself, Chris, or my dad to go retrieve another bucketful from the ocean. We spent a lot of time trudging the few feet needed to get yet another refill.

Flying kites: Sprout liked watching people fly kites – he pointed out every parasailer we saw (“big kites”). But again, participation wasn’t high on his list. I can’t blame him on this one though. While I envisioned bright kites high up above the ocean, our efforts were much more Charlie Brown than anything else. Both my mom and I had kites that were supposed to be easy to fly, but we found impossible to keep up in the air. As long as I was running, mine stayed up, but running on the beach gets very tiring very quickly. My legs giving out put an end to our kite-flying dreams.

Things I Didn’t Even Consider Before the Trip that Sprout Enjoyed

The Year-Round Christmas Store: These were staples of Lake George Village and pretty much every tourist-trap type place, but I never expected to go to one in Ocean City. (Why bother?) But when we were waiting for more than a half-hour to be seated for dinner, it was an awesome diversion. Sprout piped up “Big Santa!” every time he saw the giant Santa outside and named every single type of vehicle and animal ornament he saw. I had to carry him to prevent his tiny fingers from wrecking havoc, but that was a small price for an extended period of entertainment.

The hotel pool: I’ve always thought pools at ocean resorts were rather redundant. If you have an ocean, why would you ever go in the pool? But when you’re afraid of actually going in the ocean (see above), the pool is a pretty good alternative. Because my parents used their credit card points, we stayed in a way swankier hotel than either Chris and I or normally my parents could afford. It had a rocking kiddie pool, complete with two slides, a mini-lazy river, and squirting fountains. It was the perfect thing to allow Sprout to go in the water without the scariness of the waves themselves.

Ocean City pier

For a more amusing take on beach vacations with 100% more pie charts, check out Mommy Shorts’ Is the Beach Worth It?

What’s your best and worse experiences bringing kids to the beach?

Ferris Wheels and Cherry Tomatoes: The Montgomery County Fair

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Giant cows, sheep in coats, neon Ferris wheels, huge wheels of cheese, racing pigs and deep fried everything – just a few of the wonders found at our local county fair. Except for the pig races, which we sadly missed, we experienced all of these last Sunday at the Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. But the thing I cared about the most was one little ribbon in one little pavilion on a plate full of cherry tomatoes. To be precise, my cherry tomatoes.

I’ve always loved county fairs. We frequently attended the Saratoga County Fair when I was a kid, home of many animal exhibits and at least one absolutely terror-inducing ride that clearly didn’t meet any reasonable level of safety standards. When we moved to Montgomery County, which has an entire agricultural reserve, I knew it would have a worthwhile fair. With three years of gardening experience, I thought it would be fun to enter my tomatoes in the fair last year, but it directly overlapped with our trip to Disney World. So I held off until this year.

While I do think of them as “my tomatoes,” gardening is really a family affair. We picked cherry tomatoes because it’s the one crop that we always have plenty to spare. This year, I was particularly proud of them because I raised the plants from seed I had saved, so they were fully mine. But they would have died long ago without Chris’s regular watering and pruning. Even Sprout helps out, using his little can to water (mainly his shoes) and picking red tomatoes (that usually go from the branch right into his mouth). I wasn’t able to pick the tomatoes for the fair myself without a small person trying to steal half of them, so Chris did it for me and even dropped them off for judging. It was the perfect job to tap his fine dining training – as he said, “I’m actually really good at small, repetive motions to make things look just perfect.”

Table of tomatoes

So walking up to the vegetable table at the Farm and Garden and Flowers Department was exciting for everyone. Spout was already thrilled that we got to ride a school bus from the parking lot, so this was yet another amazing thing of the day. I stopped breathing as I looked for our plate. First place was literally a five dollar prize that they probably haven’t increased since 1950, but it was the pride of it that mattered.

Our entry turned out to be pretty easy to find because it was the only one with the stems still on the tomatoes. Although person accepting the entries recommended to Chris remove them, but he was worried about bruising one in the process. While none of the stems fell off – which would have disqualified us – they were a little wilted, which detracted from the tomatoes’ deep red just a bit.

Awardwinning tomatoes

All of that considered, we received – an honorable mention ribbon. But hey, it was something! I was a little disappointed that we didn’t place in the top three or even five, but it was a solid showing for the first year participating.

It made me feel validated as a gardener. Even though I’ve grown pounds upon pounds of food for my family and raised enough seedlings to give away to others, this outside recognition of my skill was special. It felt like entering an exclusive – albeit quirky – club. It was a similar feeling to the first time my writing was published in print. Like the connection I feel to my neighborhood while gardening, it was the sense of contributing to the history and larger whole of the county’s Agriculture Reserve. As someone relatively new to gardening in the grand scheme of things, it also reminded me of how far I’ve come. Only four years ago, my neighbor was betting to her friend against my garden being successful. She’d be so proud to see my ribbon now.

We celebrated our recognition by looking at all of the animal exhibits. Many of the animals at the Fair are owned by 4H students, who raise them as projects. Sprout’s favorites were definitely the chickens and bunnies – they’re more his size and less overwhelming than the cattle.

From there, we abandoned all pretense of sustainability or “local food” and headed to the Carnival. Filling up on fried chicken on a stick, fried green tomatoes, mutant-large corn on the cob, and watermelon, we tried to prevent get-away attempts from an excited small child. Fortunately for him, the next stop was a Funhouse in the style of the one in Grease. Starting with the rickety stairs to the slide at the end, he ran through with a smile.

Ferris Wheel

We ended our night with the county fair classic – the Ferris Wheel. I have a necklace with a picture of an old-fashioned Ferris Wheel on it, which I’ve been telling Sprout about for months. After 20 minutes of waiting, we stepped into the car. As the wheel rotated, it lifted us up high above the fairgrounds, each step up revealing a little more landscape. The other rides glowed blue, red, and green, lines and curves of neon. The exhibits we had been at earlier retreated in the distance, dark as the animals started to bed down. The pop music from the rides and the chattering of the crowds lessened to a low background accompaniment. Once in a while, I would glance over at Sprout, who was in Chris’s lap across from me. His eyes were wide, his mouth parted just slightly, not a smile, but his signature look of concentration. He just watched, as he always does.

Viewfrom Ferris Wheel

And tonight, as all nights, he was watching Chris and I. He was watching our pride in our handiwork, just as he watched and helped us tend the plants. He watched our participation in the larger community, engaging with the 4H students. He watched as we enjoyed simple pleasures like the Funhouse and Ferris Wheel. While I rarely do things just to “be an example,” I hope that my whole life is one, on that night and all of them.

Night Magic: Aquarium by Imagination Stage

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Lemons hung from an arch became a sun gate. A billowing blue sheet made silky ocean waves. Plastic streamers attached to a wooden pole transformed into a jellyfish. All of these images captivated the small children sitting around the “stage” of Imagination Stage’s show Acquarium, including my son.

Imagination Stage has been on my “to do” list with Sprout for a while, but the right opportunity didn’t come up until my friend emailed me two weeks ago. While my friends don’t have kids yet, their cousins were visiting from France with their 3 and 5 year old children. It seemed like the ideal opportunity.

We met them at the theater, located in downtown Bethesda. While it doesn’t have its own parking, it’s close to several garages and is less than a mile from the Metro. The theater has a cute alleyway next to it, decorated with huge multi-colored balls and metal swirls. It was perfect for Sprout to run up and down while we waited. They also had what looked like a really nice store, but it wasn’t open before the show.

Inside, the theater was a large, open floor space with some seating on risers beyond it. However, nearly all of the children and their parents were gathered around the performance space. Because we came in a little late, we were placed to the side, but the performers played to the entire audience as much as possible.

Like most theater for very little ones, there wasn’t much of a plot, but it was so enchanting that it didn’t matter. The story was a series of vignettes by the two main characters, Jack and Calypso, who were dressed like they were in a storybook version of Gilligan’s Island. It followed their journey through a full day to reach the fabled land of Aquarium, under the sea. After the “sun” rose, flowers needed to be planted in the garden, sheep needed to be herded, and the stars needed to come out.

Each of these different sequences was very interactive, helping engage even the antsiest of kids. Each child received a lemon and gave it to one character to hang on the arch. An adult helper from the audience handed out pieces of seaweed that magically bloomed into flowers with a pull on a piece of ribbon. The actors invited the children up to “rake” a piece of fake turf and “plant” their flowers under it. The cast managed the children beautifully, making it seem not like they were giving back their props but participating in the story. As far as I could tell, there was not a single meltdown, a huge accomplishment for this age group.

Throughout the performance, these interactive pieces were accompanied by lyrical monologues, goofy banter, and otherworldly props. While there were some silly jokes – mostly bad puns – much of the script was lovely, surreal free verse. It complemented the captivating imagery. I think the combination of the two would work even for children who are mostly non-verbal, as my friends’ nephews enjoyed it and they don’t even speak English.

The last two sequences were particularly enchanting. At “night,” the lead actress walked slowly around the edge of the crowd, holding a wheel with cut-outs, the lights down low. The reflective wheel scattered the spotlights, creating shimmering, twinkling stars on the floor and wall. As she walked and spun, she recited a poem that reminded me of some of the best children’s literature. Even I was mesmerized. While I’m usually looking at Sprout’s reaction, I just enjoyed the experience of wonder.

The show culminated in the final scene where they finally reached the oceanic Aquarium. The actors spread out a huge blue sheet across the entire floor, with all of the children and adults invited to take an edge and shake their hands up and down like the old parachute game. The actors tossed silver fish puppets onto the bouncing waves, making them dance and fly up in the air. Softly glowing blue lights and quiet music enhanced the underwater feel. When the lights finally came up, we sighed and blinked, emerging from a place of magic.

The only possible complaint I had is that the floor there is pretty hard, especially when a child insists on sitting on your lap for much of the performance. But that’s just a consequence of getting old, I suppose.

While we actually caught the last show of Aquarium, Imagination Stage regularly does shows throughout the year, including shows for very young children. It was a wonderful experience for the children and adults alike and I look forward to bringing Sprout to another show in the future.