1st baby proms failure?

took the bean to a baby proms at the opera house yesterday thinking that she would enjoy a different performance experience - one that combined art with music.

it turned out to be a rather more cerebral and staid affair although quite a number of kids did get 'it'. however, the bean was not so impressed and i had to keep prompting her on what was happening 'on stage' - really a large plastic screen on which a painter was trying to illustrate the story of a red dot. perhaps because it was a darkened room and the painter was a man (she has an aversion to any strange males of late), whatever the reason, the bean wouldn't keep still for long and at one point she even asked, "mama read me a story" and tried to rifle through my bag.

i asked if she enjoyed it when the performance ended and she said yes. but i wonder if she had really absorbed anything...e.g. the slightly abstracted trees that the artist painted the bean thought were "lollipops" and that the sun he painted was really a "starfish". so maybe the narrative eluded her.

maybe her initial enthusiasm to go to the proms was to see her other set of grandparents. whilst in the car she did shout, "we go see nai nai ye ye in august in opera house!" (i have told her that we would be seeing them in august, but she must take "august" to be an actual place.) well, perhaps her one lesson from this proms is the realisation that they don't reside there afterall.