I started right out with a cute little girl who ran around "dancing" for every song, regardless of style or tempo, and basically froze whenever a song would end. Maybe she thought it was "Musical Chairs", um, without the chairs...She stayed a long time, and her mom just sat and watched, holding her little brother. After a while I decided to give her one of my bubbles handouts. She played with them a bit, and then, of course, her little brother wanted some. He was only 2, and confirmed what I've learned about the really little ones -- they don't know where their mouths are, so they blow, but not at the actual bubble wand. They're also not entirely aware of how gravity works yet, and usually manage to just pour the bubble stuff on the ground while their attention is elsewhere. I see a lot of scoops of ice cream land on the ground for the same reason...
When I have little ones like this, I always play "Twinkle Twinkle", which sounds really great fingerpicked and with the harmony box on, and follow it with "Itsy-Bitsy Spider". It's a crack up to see the tiny ones' hands involuntarily come together as they start (trying) the spider hand movements. For a lot of them, their hands come together before they even know they're doing it -- Pavlov style. It's funny and cute, but also a bit disturbing -- what else are we ingraining in their little brains?
For the last few hours, I had one lady in a wheelchair that she apparently didn't really need ('cuz she'd get up out of it once in a while), who's daughters were off shopping, so she just listened to me all night, quite obviously enjoying every song. She made "music friends" with another couple who showed up to listen, also clearly at the right age to like my sound and stuff. That was fun.
I ended up playing until 11:30 again, even though "quitting time" is 10. Sold like 9 CDs, and brought home $169. Summer nights are good to me.
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