Mr. Sneaky Pants Attends the Symphony

On Saturday evening I asked Mr. Sneaky Pants if he would be interested in going on a date with me to the symphony, since Dr. Peds was on call.  At first Mr. SP was quite skeptical.  He did not like the idea of having to wear “church clothes” for a non-church event.  However, Dr. Peds and I talked him into it and probably because of the promise of going to get a special snack before the concert, by evening time, he was very excited to embark on the adventure.

Quite honestly, I didn’t know how the evening would go.  The symphony happens late at night.  The symphony involves a lot of quiet sitting.  I was prepared for grouching at some point.

We stopped at a coffee house to purchase a little treat.  I am always forgetting how much fun this child is when he’s by himself.  He is so chatty and so funny!  He’s spent so much of his life being stuck in the middle of the family and bothering other people and being bothered by other people and overreacting to most scenarios that happen to our family, but really, he’s such a fun kid.  And all the terrific aspects of his personality just shine when he’s away from his siblings.  We had so much fun sitting in the coffee house talking about school and his friends at school and teachers at school and all sorts of interesting things that I never get to hear about.

As we sat down in our seats at the symphony, I explained all about the pieces we were going to hear.  We talked about how there were going to be two parts to the concert with an intermission in between.  We talked all about the instruments we could see onstage, how they tuned, and about the conductor.  Mr. SP had a chatty conversation with the person next to him, whose son plays viola in the symphony and whose granddaughter, just one year older than Mr. SP, has the job of carrying the flowers out onstage for the guest soloist at each concert.  We talked about how the lights would get darker and that was the signal to be quiet.  I told him that if he got sleepy he could snuggle next to my shoulder, and I joked that no snoring was allowed.  I told him I’d have to poke him if he snored.

The lights dimmed.  My boy zipped his lips and listened enraptured to the first piece, which was the Lord of the Rings Symphony.  Perfect!  He loved it.  During the second piece, a series of dances, he yawned several times, and then drifted off to sleep.  The third piece was a concerto for classical guitar.  It was quiet, delicate, graceful, and relaxing.  The music was mesmerizing.  The audience was hushed, trying to quiet their coughs and wiggles.  By this time, Mr. SP was dead asleep.  He was deep, deep in slumber.

During the second, slow, careful movement of the concerto, he started to snore quietly.  I poked him.  I wiggled him.  I jiggled him.  I pulled his ear.  I pulled his nose.  I brushed his lips.  I lifted his head up and let drop to one side.  And the other.  I shook him.  Nothing could seem to wake him up!  Thankfully the snoring was rather quiet and delicate snoring.  I kept moving his head to open up his airways better so the snoring wouldn’t get louder.  Have you ever noticed that acoustic guitars are not very loud?  They are especially not very loud in a big auditorium.  Goodness!  I was praying that everyone around us could not hear the snoring.

The piece finished, and the audience gave the soloist a long standing ovation.  I thought he’d wake up during the exuberant applause around him, but he snored right through that too.  And then the soloist played two beautiful (quiet) encores.  Mr. SP snored on.

There was more applause.  He continued to sleep.  People climbed over him to get out of our row to go to the restroom during intermission.  He did not wake, even when his head violently dropped off of my shoulder as I stood up to let the people through. All of the people sitting near us were so entertained about how he could sleep so deeply in the middle of all the ruckus.  The second half of the concert began.  More snoring from my boy, but at least this time the orchestra was playing a Dvorak symphony that had more loud, passionate moments than quiet parts.

When the final applause surrounded us, I lifted Mr. Sneaky Pants on his feet.  He looked around, disoriented, and when people started to leave their seats he asked, “Is this the break, that intermission thing?”  I informed him that he had actually slept through the whole concert.  He said, “Well that’s too bad.  I was actually looking forward to hearing that music.”

I zipped his coat and drove him home and tucked him into bed.  It was a hoot.