Zachary's First Symphony (Op. 1, "Little Sleeper")

Zachary's dual big adventures yesterday were both successes! I'll let Meh blog about the movie theater experience, which sounds like it was really nice. We got a little bit of a late start to the long drive to the concert in the park, but still managed to arrive in time to hike out with Zachary (in moby wrap), chairs, and food to meet up with our good friends, who were saving a spot and lots more yummy food -- including some excellent kosher South African boerewors (a spicy sausage).

The concert itself was a lot of fun - couldn't always hear the best (outdoor venues aren't known for their acoustics), but it was great to be able to sit in the audience and hear how the group sounds. You get a totally different impression than when you're sitting in the orchestra itself! Zachary was initially moderately interested but quickly conked out -- I think he gets that from Meredith (classical music without singers puts her to sleep). They did a great job with all of the pieces, had me stand up before playing my pieces, and even introduced Zachary to a good amount of applause (don't worry, he continued to sleep through it).

Alas, the concert wasn't recorded (sometimes in the past these things have ended up on Sammamish Community Access TV), so the performance was 'lost to the ether', as it were. But a great evening with Zachary, and all of the gear (and yummy food!) worked out brilliantly.

I observed a wide variety of responses to Zachary's presence at the concert. People I knew from orchestra were of course very excited for us, but generally respectful -- keeping a comfortable distance, asking for permission to touch him if they were into that kind of thing, giving him lots of compliments, being impressed that he was out and about at 2 weeks (well, 2 weeks and a day) old, etc. A few others were somewhat more eager -- one friend was giving him kisses (and inhaling the 'baby smell'? *shrug*), a few other random people came up asking Meh all about him, and one or two even got a bit into our 'personal space' -- Meredith (and Zachary) handled it all wonderfully. The weirdest was our first baby stalker, encountered on the walk back to the car. This woman just kept hovering around Meh, completely focused on Zachary, going in front of us and looking back, falling back and looking at him from over Meh's shoulder, etc. She never asked any questions or talked to either of us, and was keeping really close. Now granted, it was a bit of a crowd heading out of the park, but there was enough space to keep a little more of a comfort zone. Anyway, no harm done. We all had a wonderful time and look forward to introducing Zachary to other exciting activities in the weeks/years to come!

More pictures of coziness, moby wrapping, and said concert in the park are posted here. I'll try to do this weekly (or when we get critical mass of photos).