A concert to remember

I took the kids to Rachel's concert tonight. It went about as expected: they lasted through one song in their seats, then no force on earth could keep them still (and quiet), so we got through another song roaming the aisles, then I had to take them home because Matthew kept noisily calling for us to "Follow me!" despite shushings.

What was interesting was how going to see "Mama ortess'ra [orchestra]" jogged his memories of the last time he saw Rachel in concert. That was their Independance Day concert in the summer, part of the Riverton fair, and great fun for Matthew. There were all kinds of things to do, but his favorite was the rocket ships kids could make for a dollar, then put on launching tubes to be blasted hundreds of feet high by compressed air. Matthew had a TOTAL blast with this; once he found that, he lost interest in everything else.

So I had to tell Matthew the bad news, that this one wasn't going to have any of that; just music. It wasn't even going to be outside. He was a little bummed, but still excited to see Mama Ortess'ra. And he did have a good time -- too good -- exploring the hallways at the concert hall cum high school auditorium.

But on the way home he returned to his subject: "There was a boy, not a nice boy, he took my rocket -- it had my name on it, not his name, it said Matthew -- he took it and put it behind his back and that wasn't nice and I was MAD, so I told him that I spank him, and my Daddy spank him, and he gave it back, but he wasn't nice." The orchestra really unleashed a flood of memories! "The mean boy" made quite an impression on Matthew when it happened -- he went back to playing afterwards, but kept talking about the mean boy. Still, I didn't expect him to remember so much six months later! I mean, it has been only six months, but that's 1/8 of his lifetime and an even larger fraction of how long he's been verbal. So it still catches me off guard, a bit.