kaleidoscoping chaos...: Festivaling with the Folks

Jonah: We going to camp today... with my best friends, mom?

Me: [screaming to myself in my head as loud as I can silently - VICTORY!]

Me: [speaking outloud to Jonah] No, Jonah. Today is an "Adventure Day" with mommy and Vera. Is that OK?

Jonah: I think so mom.

Also note, he told me to "leave, mom" yesterday when I dropped him off at camp - aaaaahhhh, the sounds of sweet success...

Vera took her morning nap and then we were off to an adventure.

First stop: Tot Rock - Jamming at the Smithsonian at 11:30am. We got there with a few minutes to spare and found a great parking spot. We walked fast to the Ripley Center and then it turns out - it was sold out?!?! Really... like Madonna concert sold out??? Well, not exactly. They said about 25 people hadn't shown up so they were going to let people in if they didn't show up. (good to know - don't get there late even if you have a ticket...) It started off fine. The music was very good. It was Billy Jonas. It would have been a blast if my kids would have cooperated. But it just wasn't happening. This after I paid $15 to get in... Jonah and Vera were going in different directions. Jonah kept taking the cinnamon rolls of the "buffet" and half eating them and then giving them to Vera who just smooshed them on carpet. Vera liked the music but was running around the place and every time I went to get her, Jonah would jump up and scream at the top of his lungs, "Mommy DON'T LEAVE ME!!" They were playing and fighting. Everyone else's kids seemed to be totally into the music and paying attention. I HATE THAT FEELING!!! The one when your kids are acting up and everyone else is behaving...

About 20 minutes in - I packed them up and rushed out of there... from the dark theater of temper tantrum misreableness into the bright sun of The Mall.

Second Stop: The Smithsonian Folk Life Festival - 2012. It started yesterday. I used to go to this festival all the time. Pre-kids. With friends. Usually over July 4th weekend. It would be packed. We would be laughing and seeing and eating and drinking... This was a little different. Right outside the Ripley Center there was a kiosk selling stuff... we bought a spaceship ice pop, a real strawberry smoothie and a bottle of water. You guess who got what (or just look at the pictures below). We heard some music from the Mall. We went right over to the tent with our treats... Jonah, Vera, and I did a reset.

Jonah was sitting happily with his spaceship ice pop (it dripping all over his body and his clothes...) and then he announced, "mommy, it is just like the Fresh Beats!" This made me smile... Jonah & Vera love Nick Jr's Fresh Beat Band (see here) - I find them somewhat annoying... but I like it when they have the music videos and we all dance around and sing. We all are particularly partial to the song, "Just like a Rock Star" - which Jonah started singing in between licks of his ice pop. Here's my mommy confession, the Fresh Beat Band will be playing at Wolf Trap - not too far from us. I didn't get us tickets. I kept hemming and hawing about it. I wanted to find someone to go with us - no one was that interested. Now it is sold out. I don't really want to go - it is a schlepp. It is 3pm and they aren't going to remember it. But for some reason I feel a little guilty. Whatever. Enough about these Fresh Beats already. Back to our adventure.

We were sitting in the "Creativity & Crisis" Red Hot tent and there were perfomers from The Design Industry singing some very good music mix of Broadway greats and 70s hits. My kids were sitting, slurping, bopping to beat and loving it. I just kept thinking - how funny we couldn't get it together at Tot Rock, but everyone is so happy here... oh well. Maybe the sun. The outdoor air. The lack of a crowded congested room. The fact that Vera was strapped in the stroller. Who knows. But it was good.

We watched two acts and then I knew it was time to get moving.

We happened to be in the Creativity & Crisis section of the festival. (The festival has three themes this year. The other 2 are Campus & Community and Citified.) Creativity & Crisis is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the AIDS Quilt and 30 years of life with AIDS. They have brought the quilt back to DC and it is enormous now. They lay it out every morning for viewing. It was right next to the music tent. My "adventurers" wanted to know what is was.

This led to a very interesting converstation between Jonah and me - which then also happened between Jonah and Vera. Good stuff I tell you. I had thought about our plan to go to the festival ahead of time - but when I had gone in the past the themes were New York City, The Rainforest, Washington, DC, The Silk Road, NASA, Waterways... I hadn't really thought through the AIDS discussion. But there we were.

J: What is that?

Me: A quilt.

J: What is a quilt?

Me: It is sorta like a blanket. You know how you love your blankets (he does). Well, this is similar. But in this one, different people made rectangles and when we put them together and they make one big quilt. Do you understand?

J: I think so. Does it go on a bed.

Me: No, not this one. Some quilts go on beds. But this is a very special quilt. All these rectangles were made by people like you and me. They made them because someone they loved was very sick. They made this to remember the sick person because that person is not here anymore. All these rectangles are very pretty and very special and we can look at them and remember that someone was very special and that is why there is a rectangle for them here.

J: I want to touch it. (he proceeds to start touching it and walking on the quilt...)

Me: No, we can not touch it. We can only look at it and stay on the black path. It is too delicate and special to touch it and if you do they will make us leave.

J: OK

I thought that went really well. He decided he wanted to push Vera on the black path - so I let him. Vera loved looking at the quilt and pointing at different things. Jonah was really into looking at it too. And there were things for them to look at. There were quilts with Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, rainbows, sparkles, flags, stars, - as Jonah told me - it looks like "art" mommy.

He would pull Vera up to the different quilts and talk to her about them. And then he explained the whole thing to her. He told her it was like a blanket and it was special. We couldn't touch it or a police man would make us leave. And it was very pretty and it was for sick people to make them happy. Vera was listening completely and intently. They were holding hands at one point and then she grabbed him to give him a hug.

I almost lost it.

Just the whole scene. I was totally choked up, the music, the sun, the Capitol building staring at us, health care reform just announced consitutional, the AIDS quilt... it was all too much. I held it in - for their sake (that's all they needed was their mommy hysterically crying in the middle of the AIDS quilt) - but it was a moment... it was like a different world from the complete melt down at Tot Rock and me wanting to abandon them in the Ripley Center...

When they are good - they are soooo good!!!

When the are bad... they are soooo bad....

To be continued...