Lights, Camera, Action...WIGGLES!!

Last week was our road trip to Iowa to see the Wiggles. I had both high expectations and low expectations for the trip. I had truly hoped that Harrison would love the concert and sing and dance right along with them but I also feared that it would be a disaster considering the concert started at 6:30...right at his bed time. Luckily the whole trip absolutely exeeded all of my expectations.

The trip down to Iowa was very funny. Now as a child of the 70's, I remember the road trips with my parents, well the very few that we went on, filled with me and my brother fighting in the back seat and making up games to whittle the time away. Now my road trip of '06 consisted of Harrison watching his DVD player, me watching TV on a portable TV set and Cliff listening to his iPod.

When we finally got to Ames, 3 1/2 hour later at around 2:45 pm...not too bad, we checked into our hotel..The Gateway Ames, and began to get settled into our room. I think Harrison was a bit scared to be in the hotel because he started crying very hard and kept saying "I want to go home". After about 15-20 minutes I was finally able to calm him down and he began to enjoy the room. I brought some of his favorite toys to play with, gave him his binky and blankey and some milk. I also found some shows he likes to watch on PBS so he took his pillow, blankey and binkey and lied down on the floor and watched some tv and settled in quite nicely.

At around 4:00 we decided to venture out of the hotel and first drive by where the Wiggles concert would be held and then find a place for dinner. The concert venue was very close by, just down the block. We then took to driving around Ames to find places to eat. The front desk clerks recommended a place called Hickory Park and we found it pretty easily. It was clearly the best looking place from the outside and was obviously not a chain which is what we didn't want.

Well this was a great recommendation. The food was great, the service was fast (which is what you want when you have a 2 year old) and the food was good. It was a bar-b-que restaurant. Harrison was in a spectacular mood and ate all of his dinner. He even got a malted. He was in heaven. After dinner he found a friend outside of the restaurant and the two of them ran up and down the length of the restaurant for about 1/2 an hour, it was a great thing because he really needed to burn up some energy.

Harrison went to bed pretty easily that night and slept without any problems. The next day was the day of the concert. Since the concert was at 6:30pm, we needed to find something to do during the day. I found a zoo down in Des Moines and we decided to take him there. It was about 45 minutes away but it was well worth the trip. It was called Blank Park Zoo. We saw som many great animals and Harrison was out of his stroller walking most of the afternoon. He did really well and held our hands. We saw Lions, tigers, flamingos (or Wafingos as Harrison calls it), seals, camels and Kangaroos (perfect theme for our concert later). Harrison and I even went on a train ride through the zoo which he loved. Before we left we had to get some more animals for his collection. I think we got 4 of them. Pretty soon we will need to start getting doubles. I think he probably has about 80 animals right now.

After the zoo we came back to the room to take a nap, but my master plan didn't work because Harrison did not nap. He stayed up and then finally fell asleep at 3:30 - 3:45. We needed to leave for dinner by 4:45 so this was going to be a short nap. Luckily he napped for about 1/2 hour on the way to the zoo so he did sleep that day. When we woke him up he was so crabby but he let us get him dressed and out the door without too much fuss. We wanted to go back to Hickoy Park but when we got there the wait was about 25 minutes. Apparently not only were the people who were going to the 6;30 show there but the people who just got out of the 3:00 show there so it was packed. We then went across the street to Applebees and after Harrison got some food into him he perked up back to his normal self and started to get super excited about the concert.

As soon as dinner was over we headed to the concert, which was at about 5:45 which was the perfect time. We stopped at Flowerama (sorry Ken!) to pick up a rose to give to Dorothy. We got to the concert at about 5:55 and found great parking. Harrison wanted to carry his rose himself so I have to say the cutest thing was watching him hold Cliff's hand and carry the rose and walk to the concert. We got inside and amazingly parked in the perfect location because out section was right infront of the doors we came in. We checked out the set and really started to get excited. I left Harrison and Cliff to go buy souvineers (a concert t-shirt, a feathersword and a water bottle) while Cliff took Harrison to get a closer look at the stage. I met up with them very easily and we made our way to our seats. They were amazing seats!! But Harrison would have none of the seats, he wanted to be right on the stage. I even had to "ask" (because I knew he would say no) the security guard if Harrison could go up on the stage to get Harrison to stop fussing about going up there. I put on his harness and as soon as the show started Harrison took me right back to the front of the stage where we stayed the whole show.

It was a super amazing show. Harrison absolutely loved it. They started the show off by coming driving the Big Red Car and singing one of Harrison's favorites "Choo Choo Chugga Chugga Big Red Car". The first thing he said was "That's the REAL Wiggles". He couldn't believe it. He immediately started singing the song and dancing. And as soon as the Wiggles came close he was waiving and saying Hi to them. Amazingly Harrison was really one of the only kids in this open area in front of the stage. I don't know if I have this boy who is very strong willed or what but I couldn't believe in a stadium full of toddlers and pre-schoolers he was the only one. But good for us because I just sat on the floor and held onto the harness "leash" and let him have fun. Murray was the first one to notice Harrison and waived to him and gave him the thumbs up. Harrison immediately turned to me and said "Murray waived at me". It was so cute. Next was Jeff and it got the same reaction. And then Anthony. Greg didn't really acknowledge him, but that was fine.

The best moment was when Dorothy came out, Harrison realized he didn't have his rose. He turned to me and said "I have to get my rose and give it to Dorothy". We then high tailed it back to Cliff and our seats, quickly grabbed the rose and went back to the stage (now remember, I am still holding onto the "leash"...so this is really funny) When we got back to the stage, Harrison, standing on his tippy toes was holding the rose up to Dorothy saying, "Here Dorothy, Here is your rose". It was the cutest thing ever. But she didn't see him but the camera guy there did and I think he got him on camera doing this. I don't know what the footage is used for but it was great. Jeff them came down to collect the roses for Dorothy. Harrison then handed Jeff his rose and gave him a hug. I caught all of this on film. (well actually on digital since no one uses film any more...). Later Captain Feathersword was right in front of Harrison and he froze, he didn't hug him. Now when you ask Harrison who he got to hug...this is his response.."the other boy hugged Captain Feathersword...I hugged Jeff". I think he was really sad not to hug the Captain because right now that is who he likes the best.

At one point they started playing the song "Do the Monkey"...and Harrison was pretending to be the tiger...and Anthony was imitating him...so he and Anthony were interacting together and copying each other being a tiger...it was hilarious.

Harrison absolutely loved the concert. He danced and sang almost every song and he even got to interact with the Wiggles Themselves. He was in Toddler heaven. On our way out to the car he told us that "I had a fantastic time at the concert"....I know he said fantastic....I don't know where he picked that up but he used it correctly.

When we got back to the room at around 8:30 pm he was all keyed up and couldn't fall asleep. He was up until around 9:30 - 10:00. When he finally did fall asleep he had trouble staying asleep and woke up several times. The worst was in the morning. He would semi-wake up crying that his head hurt and then fall right back to sleep. We brought him in bed with us and he slept on and off for another hour - hour and a half. When he got up he was in a great mood and immediately wanted his Wiggles Water bottle.

On our way out of town we stopped back at Hickery Park for lunch because it was so good and Harrison saw his friend's mother again (the one he played with the last time we were there) because she works there and she remembered him and came over. We then headed home at around 1:00 and were home by 4:30.

It was an amazing trip, Harrison was in a great mood the whole time, we were all relaxed and really enjoyed each other and especially enjoyed the Wiggles Concert. I hope they come to MPLS soon!!