Last Saturday Young C and I took our first solo trip (without L’il I). We took one bus and two subways all the way downtown to Roy Thompson Hall to go see a symphony concert. It was his first symphony and mine (I’m pretty sure). The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) schedules a handful of concerts aimed at children aged 5 through 12 each season as part of their Concerts for Young People Series. Even though Young C is only just 3, he is really way into music, and we were offered a complementary pair of seats at the last concert of this season, so I decided to check it out anyway. (This particular concert was also the only one performed by the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra in place of the TSO.)
I knew that the half hour before the concert would feature intimate pre-concert performances in the lobby, and planned to arrive in plenty of time. A truly amazing sequence of slips, spills, and falls just as we were getting ready to leave set us back, of course. (You can never allot too much time for travel with kids. Never.) We did see the last five minutes of an Africa-inspired drum performance that Young C absolutely loved. We then found our seats as I reminded him again that he really needed to be on his best behaviour. Sit still and listen to the music, this is the symphony.