Mark of Fridays: Sesame Street Live

Mark, Elmo'd up pre-show.

On a whim last weekend, Lynne and Matt decided to go see Sesame Street Live in Rosemont. Matt was a bit skeptical at first - mainly because he thought it was Elmo on Ice. Not so.

It actually was just about the greatest thing ever if you are between the ages of 2 and 5.
The show was pretty good. It was a standard Sesame Street plot with Super Grover losing his super powers and the other characters showing him how to get them back. (Get sleep, eat right, keep yourself clean, exercise - if you must know.) Not exactly Dickensian fare for the parents, but it was magical to hear the kids cheer when a new character walked out of the TV and onto the stage in front of them.

And look who else was there!

But before the show might have been even better. If you got there an hour early, you could stand in Oscar's garbage can, sit in Big Bird's nest, go to Hooper's Store and more. Basically this was awesome for the parents because everyone thought about how they would have loved to do this when they were kids and they would have treasured this moment. And so the parents made the kids stand for dozens of pictures when all the kids wanted to do was play around already!

But there was also a pre-show where several of the characters (including the infamous Murray) came out to do short songs like Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. The characters were really close to the kids and COOKIE MONSTER AND ZOE GAVE MARK A HIGH FIVE.

Mark looked he was going to throw up from excitement. Afterwards, he just jumped up and down in place because he couldn't believe he'd met his heroes. And this time he wasn't lumpy.

Anyhow, for those of you that have kids, we give it two big red fuzzy thumbs up.

Who are you calling a grouch?

Picking vegetables at Hooper's store.

Mark of Fridays: Meeting your hero

How many of us ever in our lives get a chance to meet our hero?
And not just meet our hero, but give our hero a hug, sit down with hero and talk about the letters 'E' and 'M' as well as the number one?
Well, Mark got that chance on Wednesday.
And, sure, maybe Elmo looked more like a red straw with a gumdrop on top. And maybe Lynne and Matt weren't exactly sure that it really was Elmo. And possibly they were bit creeped out by Elmo.
And, OK, maybe Elmo couldn't see at all, so he had to have a seeing-eye guide who tell him, "Elmo, why don't you bend down? There's a little boy in front of you. No, to your left. More to the left." And, fine, maybe Elmo gave Mark high five in the face.
But if you meet Hank Aaron and he goes 0-for-5 that night, you still got meet Hank Aaron, right? And that's pretty cool.