Alternate title: How I turned out to be a worse mother than I thought
The National just came to Merriweather, and since we had three tickets, and since Katie had come along for our pilgrimage to see Mumford and Sons, and since I never quite got around to having a birthday party for Beth, we figured it was the second-eldest's turn.
We had a great time, and Beth (who, if you recall, had one previous concert experience) thoroughly enjoyed herself. Towards the end of the evening, the lead singer - as he often does- started weaving through the crowds. In a moment of pure blind instinct, I realized that he was heading our way and I grabbed Beth by the scruff of her neck and propelled her through the crowd to get her a spot up front. Thou Shalt not be Obnoxiously Pushy could reasonably be considered one of the guiding principles of my life, but apparently my principles don't hold up to the temptation of standing kind of in the vicinity of a guy in a spotlight.
Beth's view was mostly of his backside as he sung to the crowd in front of him, and even though he almost stepped on her as he turned back to the stage, and even though he almost hit her on the head with the mike when he dropped it, she was extremely excited. As I stood on the sidelines watching her, it hit me that I had just shoved my kid into a screaming throng and then abandoned her there. I was struck by two disparate thoughts: #1- that I was so instinctively willing to do something (be obnoxiously pushy) for my child that I would never have done for myself, and #2- the fact that it didn't occur to me until it was too late that throwing my kid into a howling mob like her life depended on getting close to a Rock Star wasn't really the smartest thing to do.
Anyway, she not only survived to tell the tale, it was the highlight of her night. We found this video on YouTube, much to Beth's delight. You can see her around the 26 sec mark, lower left hand corner. She's the really short person standing behind the singer.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
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2 comments:
I am sure Beth had a ball. Not many people take their kids to a rock concert. Not sure which one is her- there is two short blondes?
Your future son in law will probably be a rocker !!!!!!!
Rock on sweet Beth
Love
Grandma
When Matt Berninger backs up and almost hits the short blond (wearing a black jacket with the hood up - actually, it's one of the hand-me-down Pgh Reelers jackets), that's Beth. She's looking up at him.
If I could special-order vocations for the girls, we'd end up with a couple mothers, at least one musician, a poet, and at least one cloistered nun. A rocker son-in-law would be okay, too. We'll see what the future brings....
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