Oktoberfest Beginneth...

It is true that Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany doesn't start until the end of September and only lasts a week or so there. But for Glenn, myself, and the rest of our dance group, Oktoberfest started at the end of August, as we began our dancing season. In addition, it doesn't end right away. Rather, it goes on until the beginning of November, with at least one day of celebration each weekend.

Since he was in the womb, Jamey has been hearing Oompah music every Friday at practice. Not to mention, he was just a tiny little group of cells when I went through last Oktoberfest season. Because of that, he is already adjusting well to the shows we have done.

As I said, our first big show was the second-to-last weekend in August at Hagerstown Maryland's Augustoberfest. Our group (Alt Washingtonia) goes every year and entertains for two days and thank God, this year it wasn't that hot. As Jamey was still about 6 weeks old at that point, he was still sleeping through much of the day. And the soothing tones of the Bavarian music put him to sleep through the majority of our roughly 4 hours of shows.

In fact, at one point, we had a "Baby Parking" area for Jamey's and Christopher's strollers as the two took naps side by side. It is the kind of picture that I am sure they will look back on and laugh. And Monica and I will look back and say, See, even then you did stuff together. Being worried about a little too much noise, we brought ear plugs, but they didn't really fit. In the end it didn't really matter, as he didn't seem bothered by the music, as I said. But Monica has a brilliant way of blocking out the noise while Christopher sleeps. She puts on ear protectors that block out noise. They belong to her dad and we decided that we would try a pair on Jamey to see how they would work. From this came perhaps my favorite picture of Jamey. (Forget the fact that he actually only wore the noiseblockers for about one minute, as they proved too tight for his head and made him angry.)