Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?

If you couldn't tell from the recent picture of Eliza, she is a big fan of Sesame Street.  She asks to watch it nearly everyday; she checks out Sesame Street DVDs from the library, and plays with her Sesame Street plush characters more often than her baby dolls now.  Elmo, Cookie monster, and Big Bird accompany us on all errands, eat dinner with us (strapped into Eliza's booster chair), accompany Eliza on the piano when she is singing, and Eliza not only changes their diapers, but puts them down regularly for naps.  Everything in our house revolves around Sesame street.  Eliza talks about every episode, tells me everything that Elmo does, and sings almost every song.  So you can bet that when my friend offered free tickets to Sesame Place (a Sesame Street based amusement park), I eagerly accepted.  Despite being the first day of November, the weather was perfect.  Half way through the day, we shed any jackets and sweatshirts and spent the majority of the day in short sleeved shirts. 

When we got there, as you might imagine, Eliza was completely stoked, exclaiming, "We found Sesame Street." 

The Halloween themed decorations and shows were very cute.  Even I enjoyed the singing and dancing shows. Murray was there to greet us as we walked into the park.

From there, we headed to the Count's Halloween Countdown, a cute little show.  We ended up sitting on the front row.  Apparently Eliza wanted a specific angle, because she found a different place to sit all by herself. 

It was great to sit on the front row because Eliza got some close contact with Abby.  I'm not really sure which character is her favorite because it changes everyday.  Every time a new character appeared onstage, she would point, clap, smile and yell the characters names.  I was afraid she would be frightened of how big the characters were, but she didn't seem phased by it at all.  In her mind, Elmo, Abby, Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Telly, Oscar the Grouch, Grover, Burt, Ernie, and all the rest of the Sesame Street characters are just as real as mom and dad.  Size doesn't matter; she was smitten. 

She may have changed benches part way through, but she watched the entire show, gave a standing ovation, and ran up to the front afterwards to try and give the characters a high five.  Zaby liked the shows so much, he wanted to take part of the action by getting on stage.

 

After the first show, we decided to try out some of the rides.  The majority of the park is actually a water park.  Considering we went on November 1st, the water rides were closed; and because Eliza is little, we were limited in the types of rides we could get on.  She absolutely loved the Elmo flying fish ride (pictured the top left corner).  She cried when she had to get off.  Boy was that hard to explain to her why we couldn't stay on, and why we weren't going to get back in line.  Not only was the line long, but we had to wait extra long because Zaby was too small to ride; and an adult is only allowed to accompany one child at a time.  So my friend and I had to take turns staying with Zaby and accompanying the three eager girls.  She also loved Snuffy's slide, and went down over and over again.  She did cry once when I pushed her down the slide - she was taking too long to go and the line was getting long. 

We watched another radio show (which was very entertaining), and an episode of Elmo's World. 

Zaby didn't watch much of the show.  He enjoyed climbing on the benches, diving head first off his seat, and causing all kinds of havoc.  Soon, he became interested in flirting with the people sitting next to me.  He would smile at them, giggle, turn back to me, and do it all over again.  What a handsome little boy. 

We took a few minutes to snap a picture with Abby and dance with Burt.  Eliza is giving Burt a high five in the picture below.  We rode the carousel (I left my camera in the stroller so I don't have any pictures of it), then found a place to watch the parade. 

 

Eliza and her friend Maddie are waiting for the parade to start.

 

Don't be fooled by this picture; he sat still for a total of 2 seconds before he thought it was more fun to join the parade.  It is times like this that no mother has enough arms. 

This video of the parade is terrible.  I was trying to keep Zaby at bay and balance shooting some of the parade and capturing Eliza's reactions to the characters' appearance.  Don't get dizzy.    

 

If we get the chance to go again,  you better believe we will go to Sesame Street.  It was a great day, and made even better by the magic in Eliza's eyes.  All day long, kids came up to her wanting to hold her Elmo doll.  She carried around that Elmo doll all day long - never put him down, and didn't even ask me to take a turn.  

On the way out, we stopped to take a family picture by this Ernie shaped pumpkin. The kids were troopers - having gone all day, they were exhausted, but you can tell from the pictures they had fun. 

I couldn't help but take a picture of this sign that was hanging up in the nursing mother's room (yes, they had one there; it was great).    

  I really hope that my children know that they matter to me because they sure brighten up my life.