Saturday, September 14, 2019

Wipe Your Hands On My Dress

We went to the Sensory Symphony today with my in-laws.  The state symphony was putting on the event and went all out.   We were fairly certin they were targeting all kinds of disabilities as the information on it mentioned multiple times how if the noise was too much, there was a "quiet room".   And indeed, we saw many children wearing sound-muffling headphones on from the point we entered the building.

There were activities to do beforehand like making a conductor's baton with streamers and many instruments to play and touch.   My daughter loved the mini harp and was fastinated by the huge horn a la the Ricolla commercials.  I didn't get a chance to get close to the instrument, but my daughter touched it up and dowm several times.   

She played a trombone and had to be told her turn was up she enjoyed the sounds it was making so much.   We were approached by one of the staff, asking if we wanted assistive audio for the experience.   This is a transmitter with an earpiece that has someone commenting about what's happening on stage while the concert is underway. She suggested we have one for my daughter and an adult so we'd know what they were saying. 

We got some snacks, a print copy of the program as well as a braille version for my daughter and headed in to find some seats.   The event was general admission so we were half-way back by the time we found six seats across two rows for our group.  There were a lot of people at the concert extending all the way into the balconies.

I was approached almost immediately by the lady who had offered the assistive audio sets to me, saying blind attendees had space reserved for them down front and did we want to go there.   My daughter had already said she'd wanted to sit up front so she and I got our things together and followed her to the front row.    

I don't know about the reserfed seats situation because I saw her ask something to some people and then they got up and left their seats.   She ushered us into the front row and asked if we needed anything else. 

As the concert started my daughter wanted some food.   I had got both sweet and salty things from the snack and drink area where the very nice ladies serving thought I was twenty-two.   I don't look anywhere near twenty-two, but if this makeup I'm putting on makes me look younger, I'm all for it.  

What I realizxed at the point I was handing food over to my daughter was that I had absolutely nothing for either of us to wipe our hands on after eating potato chips and candy.   And that was bad.   My daughter was wearing a very special dress brought to us from our friends in Indonesia—a dress their daughter had worn for a special event herself.   It was white with read flowers and bows, and it was beautiful.   

I couldn't have my daughter wipe her mouth or hands on the dress.   I wasn't sure if even dry cleaning might get out rust-colored stains from barbecue chips.  So I did the only thing I could think of: I told her to wipe her hands on my dress.   Sacrificial dress for the day, my cotton, mostly black patterened dress would survive the food and could be washed in the washing machine.

It was an odd thing, having my daughter reach out for me, only to find she was looking for a section of my dress for her dirty hands.   She didn't once mess up her dress, including afterwards when we went to eat Chinese food after the show.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Clothing Differences:  My daughter was getting her dress on for the symphony and my son was simultaneously unhappy about dressing up.   I told him to just pick out a collared shirt.   This was odd to my daughter, who didn't know what a collared shirt was.   I got her an example that she put over her dress to see what the "collar" was like.   My son said, "guys wear collared shirts, girls wear dresses."  I explained that wasn't a hard and fast rule, but that yes, more commonly than not, girls wore dresses and boys wore more dressy shirts.  

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