A Concert of a Lifetime

We’ve been planning the concert for months. Laurie Berkner at the Cabot! Ever since Abby was a baby she’s loved Laurie Berkner. We’ve rotated through many popular children’s entertainers like Ms. Rachel, The Wiggles, Mickey Mouse, but still to this day her favorite has always been Laurie Berkner, especially “We are the Dinosaurs”. So when we heard Laurie Berkner was coming to perform at a concert venue near us, of course, we had to book tickets! We got tickets in November, and yet, even then, there weren’t many tickets to choose from for two seats together (all those under two come in free, unless you want them to have their own seat, of course, which we knew no matter what Abby would want to sit on our laps). So we got tickets (after all $15 a ticket for Abby to meet her absolute favorite singer, totally worth it!)

The concert was on Sunday, and originally, I wanted to leave Saturday but unfortunately, plans did not go my way with hotels being pretty expensive and we couldn’t really figure out what we’d do in Salem for the extra day. So instead we opted for leaving really early Sunday. I think everyone was SUPER excited for the concert as we were in the car and ready to go by 8 am and in Salem by 9. David had prepared snacks and a picnic lunch for us, while I had prepared an Abby bag double-checking diapers were the right size and we had an extra outfit in case Abby got car sick. Abby slept the whole way to Salem, which meant we could plan our day in Salem, but we didn’t really find anything we wanted to do. All the tickets were $30 each and we weren’t really sure if we wanted to spend $60 to go to an hour-long exhibit, so we opted for a nearby beach instead.

It was perfect timing too, because the minute we parked at the beach, Abby awoke from her slumber. Then we walked to the beach. It was a bit windy but still a beautifully sunny day. We walked around the beach. Abby loves to just stand along the waterline seeing the waves move up and down, while I collect seashells and see if they passed the Abby test (she likes the bigger ones and the ones that are pretty colors). Then we took tons of family pictures along the beach.

Afterwards, we went to Beverely, MA, where the concert was. We found a perfect parking spot along main street and just walked around. It had a really cute vibe along main street, but unfortunately for us most of the shops didn’t open until 11 so we just walked around and got a lay-of-the land before stopping at a coffee shop where we started to see tons of kids and babies younger than Abby all here for the 11 Laurie Berkner show. Then we walked to a really cute and bigger than expected bookstore where we picked out a Lego book for Abby and David picked out a book to enjoy. The book store connected to an Atomic Coffee which had coffee and sandwiches, which connected to a juicery, so Abby and I got a smoothie and an acai bowl (I loved my Acai bowl and so did Abby but I didn’t really like the smoothie although Abby seemed to love it!).

We hung out at the juicery for a while and ate lunch and played with legos, until we could tell Abby was getting a little tired, so we went back to the car hoping I could feed her to sleep, which unfortunately was unsuccessful, but we knew she needed to sleep before the concert, so David pushed her in the stroller while I shopped! All these cute thrift shops were open so I had tons of fun shopping while David put Abby to sleep. Funny story: I had thought through hand motions I had told David he would meet me at this one shop once Abby was asleep since David’s phone was dead, but he didn’t seem to get it and he was walking around looking for me once Abby fell asleep. Then when I was done shopping I was worried because it had been a while and I hadn’t seen them. So I went to the one place I knew David would go to the bookstore - and there he was with Abby asking the cashier if he could borrow a phone to find me. After that I took him shopping and showed him the cute vest I found.

Then we went to this really cute tea restaurant, which just opened in Beverley, where we got a British Tea like experience. It was absolutely adorable and we’d honestly go pack to Beverly just for the tea experience. Abby slept. David read, and I relaxed enjoying my tea and all my pastries! They were literally soooooo good!!!!! Before long it was 2pm, which is when the concert venue opens for our concert at 3pm, so we left the tea shop to go to the concert! We checked in, where we had to check in our stroller and David got a shaker for Abby as a souvenir for the concert and to shake during the show. Abby woke up as we were checking in the stroller, so we carried her up the stairs for our seats. They had concessions open, but after the amazing tea experience we had we weren’t really that hungry. We still had 30 minutes until the concert would start, and we felt Abby was a bit overwhelmed waking up to a concert full of tons of loud kids and strangers so I took her outside the venue for a bit near the bathroom/concessions where it was a bit quieter and we read this infographic about the Cabot together. It was so interesting - The Cabot is one of the only remaining theater palaces left in America! We also got to meet so many other kiddos, who were a bit older than our Abby. Afterwards, we went back in to get David, but Abby was still overwhelmed so we just hung outside the three of us together until 3pm.

The show started at 3pm! I don’t have words to describe what an incredible event it was. Abby started the show very focused, sitting at the edge of my lap just taking it all in trying to figure out what was happening, and she did not like the noise the shaker was making. Then there were interactive moments where Laurie would ask kids to jump up and down or spin around or clap their hands, and oh my was Abby getting into it. During Laurie Berkner’s song “Rocketship Run”, Abby would jump up and down on my lap ready to blast off! During “Pig on Her Head”, Abby put her shaker on her head and sang all the animal noises of all the animals on people’s heads. Then for the rest of the show, she would not let go of her shaker as she shook it to the music.

Then these huge beach balls came out and Abby jumped up and down so excited to catch one, but was getting beat out by the older kids. Finally, David (may or may not have bribed an usher) to hand us the beach ball, but when we finally got the beachball, Abby was a bit scared just at how big it was. Throughout the show, Abby would get a bit tired (or maybe hungry, we’re never sure) and would hide in Mommy’s shirt to get milk, before coming out to her next favorite song. The last two songs were “The Goldfish” and “We are the Dinosaurs”! Abby’s favorite, and apparently everyone else’s too as the crowd was going crazy stomping and roaring like dinosaurs. Then Laurie left, and so did a few people, but we stayed and Laurie came back to share some more bits and pieces of her other songs before we finally sang “Good-bye”. Abby sang “Good-bye” all the way back to the car, where we sang and watched Laurie-Berkner all the way home, which meant I didn’t have any GPS so we completely overshot our exit, which led to us getting lost, stuck in traffic and Abby getting sick, but we finally got home and Abby went straight for Alexa to play more Laurier Berkner!