Shlock Rock Concert!

Gosh, that was fun! I rushed the kids out of the house this morning, gassed up the minivan, and we made it to school before the teacher was out to collect the kids! Then Sofia and I went for our regular Starbucks breakfast with D and her daughter A. Miss Sofia sits so nicely now, coloring or playing with a doll, while I jump into line to get coffee and food. She also cleans up the table and throws everything in the garbage!

I dropped her off (begged her teachers to come into the room a minute early) and raced back to school to catch the bus. I got to assist with the kindergarten, so Micah was my bus-buddy. The kids in this school are so darn CUTE! The bus ride was very very loud, and one kid almost got sick, but we made it in time for the concert.

What a riot. The concert was in the gymnasium at Maimo, which is celebrating its 70th year. Now, Maimo is an Orthodox school, and most of the other guest schools were also Orthodox. So it was interesting to see how our kids would fit in.

Mind you, Sam not only wore his "tallit katan" (the little undershirt with the tzitzit/fringes), but he insisted that I change from jeans to a skirt! So I had to wear my long Jerusalem skirt (very very comfy, but the shoes weren't as comfy). I looked quite frum (very religious). Sam and only one other of our kids has a tallit katan. All our kids had on their choir T-shirts, which makes them look like a colorful array of M&Ms, but they stood out from the plain blues and whites of most of the other schools.

The band was great, but it was tough to hear the words, and they are the kind of band that you NEED to hear the words in order to get the "joke". They take popular music ("We Didn't Start The Fire", "Oh When The Saints", etc.) and put lyrics for nice Jewish boys and girls to it. It's tough to describe; go check out the band's website.

So I'm glad to say that eventually our kids did get up and dance. Again, this was not what they were used to; since it's an Orthodox environment, the genders shouldn't mix for dancing, so there were conga lines of boys and conga lines of girls. I had to make sure our kids picked the correct line! But we had lots of fun, and my little friend A and I were doing The Swim and a bunch of other goofy dances. A lot of the MWJDS kids conked out halfway through, and they all ended up sitting on the bleachers for a while, but a few of our kids were totally into it.

We left the concert promptly at 11:30, and I was able to meet David and Sofia back at Whole Foods just as they were finishing lunch.

Sam is reading Torah tomorrow for the first time. He's been practicing, and this afternoon when we got home, he was able to do it perfectly! I'm so impressed at his ability to learn the trope (music) by listening to the mp3 over and over. I'm very very proud of him!

So I'll post that video tomorrow, I hope, but for tonight, here is Miss Sofia, swinging on the swing in the doorway this weekend (T21Online friends, this is the same video I posted over there):