Puppet Pigs and Escalators

I once thought when I had kids I would never let them watch TV.  But like many well intentioned bohemian dreams, reality put  a dent in that ambition. Toddlers are like drunks in so many ways, but mostly in the amount of energy you have to put into keeping them out of trouble. And so I often give my two year old my phone and let her pick her viewing pleasures. She likes watching videos of people opening play-doh packages and uncovering toys. She loves British cartoons like Little Princess and Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom.

Her favorite though is Peppa Pig. Peppa is an English animated pig with a Daddy, Mommy, and little brother George. They jump around in muddy puddles or visit their grandparents. They have adventures or they don’t, and every five minute episode ends with all the characters falling on their backs laughing uproariously. My daughter can name all the characters and has even taken to speaking in Peppa’s British accent.

When I heard that there was a touring live stage show of Peppa Pig’s Big Spalsh coming to the Fillmore, I pitched to my editor that I could write about taking my daughter to the show. I figured it would make an entertaining story and at the same time make me the #1 Dad in her eyes, at least until the next time I take the phone away from her.

So Saturday afternoon I woke her from her nap, packed the backpack with a couple snacks and took the short drive to the Lincoln Road parking lot where half of South Florida’s toddler population had parents with the same idea. With all the concerts I’d attended at the Fillmore, it was jarring to see strollers, diaper bags, and cotton candy being passed around instead of joints.

We got to our seats exactly at 5:00 which was showtime according to the ticket. My daughter placed her doll on the part of the seat she wasn’t occupying. She was amazed by all the action taking place around her. The kids her age and those a little older, the massive room and the red curtains on the stage. She was in awe until I could see she wasn’t. I looked at my phone. It was 5:15 and I started having flashbacks from our first trip to the movie theater. We had gotten there early and by the time the feature started she was already saying, “Go home Daddy. Go home!” But since that time she’s gotten older and her parents have grown wiser. Mommy told me to pack some chips, they would distract her and they did.

At 5:20 the lights dimmed, and the curtains rose. There was a Crayola hued set and the Peppa Pig theme song played. A woman dressed as a kid in overalls who introduced herself as Daisy came on to the stage and screamed “Where are all my friends?” Life sized puppets of Suzy Sheep and Pedro Pony  giggled as they came into view from the bushes they were hiding behind to the crowd’s delight. But there was still no Peppa. Daisy suggested to the crowd, “Maybe if we scream her name she’ll come out. One… two… three… Peppa Pig!” We did that several times. My daughter turned and smiled at me every time she yelled “Peppa Pig”. Out came Peppa. My daughter clapped like she was having the time of her young life and then began the show’s first point of tension. The late arriving crew sitting in front of us took their seats. My daughter started moving her head trying to see, I stuck her on my lap, but then it came, “Go home Daddy! Go home!”

I tried to distract her. “Look, it’s Mr. Bull!”

“Go home Daddy! Go home!”

I took out the chips, but she pushed them away. “Go home Daddy! Go home! Go home Daddy! Go home!”

This is another example of how drunk friends are good training for parenthood. you have to save these toddlers from themselves. If we were to go home, there would be no life size animal puppets. So we went into the lobby and took a few rides up and down the escalators until that thrill ebbed and returned to find some empty seats with clear views ahead of them. We got back just in time to jump up and down to help get George’s toy dinosaur out of a tree. We missed how it got up there, but I don’t think it was too important for plot purposes.

The plot from what I could piece together was that there was a hole in the school’s roof and Peppa and her friends threw a fair to raise money to fix the roof. There was a scene with talking pineapples that had the parents behind me joking in a South American accent about LSD.  At this point I got a little distracted because my daughter began swinging from the waist high bar in front of us. She’s not the toddler equivalent of the friend who when they get drunk passes out, she’s the one who dances on the tables.

Daisy on the stage asked for more jumping. My daughter would not disappoint. They asked for more cheering. She screamed, ran ten feet away and screamed again. I looked around the room.  Keeping up was not just my struggle. It was pandemonium. This must have been like when Rome was sacked by barbarians. When the kids got at their craziest, the show called it quits. My daughter saw everyone clapping, put her doll down and joined in the clapping. As we walked out of the theater the two of us spoke about what we saw. We recounted Peppa and her Daddy jumping in muddy puddles and all the fun hi-jinks we witnessed.

When we got home Mommy (her Mommy not Mommy Pig) asked our daughter how the evening and the show was.

In a British accent she answered. “Daddy and I went on an escalator.”

We all fell on our backs and laughed uproariously.