Our Day with Elmo!

Saturday, Sophie, Aunt Megan, and I went to see Elmo! The puppeteer who performs Elmo, Kevin Clash, did a free appearance at ImaginOn as part of the Novello Festival of Reading. Our friends Bob and Lisa and their daughters Emily and Abby went too.

Tickets were free, as I mentioned, but you did have to reserve them in advance and seating was general admission, so we arrived fairly early to get in line. And we got good seats-- we were about 5 or 6 rows back in the center. Very nice!

After an introduction, Kevin Clash came on stage carrying a red duffel bag and said, "I'm only going to talk for a couple minutes, because these kids didn't come here to see me." And true enough, after a few short minutes he reached beneath the podium and brought out Elmo. And the crowd went wild!

One of the funniest parts was when Elmo (because Kevin faded into the background immediately once Elmo showed up) brought up three kids on stage to help him sing "Elmo's World." He asked each child to name two of the things they love, and then they sang the song with their name in it instead of Elmo's. This small girl named Leah-- she couldn't have been more than four-- announced that she loved "Breakfast, and Elephants." So we sang, "la LA la LA, la LA la LA, Leah's World... She likes breakfast, and elephants too... that's Leah's World!" So funny.

Afterwards, Kevin signed copies of his book My Life as a Furry Red Monster. Megan got him to leave a message on her voice mail-- so if you call her cel phone, you get a mildly confusing buzz of crowd noise followed by Elmo saying hello. It's pretty funny.

When we got up to get our book signed, Kevin asked for the Sophie's name and then started talking to her in Elmo's voice. She hid her face. I don't know if she was shy or embarrassed! But I think she had a good time, because she asked today if we could go see Elmo again. Awww.

(In case you've never seen him-- yep, that's Elmo! And Kevin's vocal ability is amazing-- he transitions in and out of Elmo's voice effortlessly. Not to mention he's a pretty fine puppeteer as well.)