Then and Now (Part 2) - Everyone Deserves Music, Sweet Music

Then: 4 months old - We traded in the weekend ACL Festival passes (officially - 3 days. 8 stages. 130 bands. unofficially - 90 degrees. crowded. exhausting. definitely - fun!) we had purchased before Gavin was born for something a bit more manageable as an infant's introduction to the Austin music scene - Stubbs Bar-B-Que Sunday Gospel Brunch. Grandma and Grandpa (Grodner), Auntie Shana, Dad, Mom, and Gavin all piled into the downstairs stage of this historic Austin live music venue to listen to Danny Brooks. As the band took the stage, we put Gavin in his noise reducing ear phones, and he was content. As the low, slow soulful sound of the band begin, Gavin actually seemed to be enjoying dancing in my arms. Then the bass kicked in. It wasn't loud (at that point), but you could feel the vibrations through your body. Gavin did not like it at all. His body tensed, his eyes shot wide open, and he started crying, hard. It was such a sensory overload, that, after I calmed him down in the quieter upstairs dining room, he passed out in dad's arms for the rest of the concert.




Now: 10 months old - Gavin had his first festival camping experience (mostly) at the Old Settler's Music Festival. About 20 friends camp overnight at Ben McCullough park for 2, 3, or 4 nights, and then attend the festival at Salt Lick Pavillion during the days. This is car camping on steroids. Different coolers for cocktail ice, water, sodas, adult beverages, breakfast, snacks, lunch, and dinner. A firepit with a granite slab. The camping spot is staked and claimed the weekend before. The boys collected enough campfire wood to build a medium sized log cabin. Daniel, Gavin, and I headed to the campsite at 9:30 am on Saturday. We spent a leisurely morning hanging out in our camp chairs around the fire (yes, even Little G had his own chair). We ate breakfast tacos, decorated our CAMP HOMETEAM cup, and played in the creek next to the campsite. Then we headed over to the pavillion for some music, the petting zoo, and some good old fashioned bare foot festival fun. Gavin LOVED it. Even the rain did not dampen our smiles. Around 8pm, we headed back to the campsite, ate dinner, got in our camping jammies, and packed into the tent. Unfortunately, despite 3 months living in a tent in Patagonia, mom and dad's camping skills were rusty. We failed to recall that we had a two man backpacking tent (meaning, to save weight when hiking, it barely fits Daniel and I sleeping shoulder to shoulder without an inch between us). We thought we had picked a nice flat spot to set up the tent, but we failed to recognize the flat grass and ripple marks and ended up setting up the the tent in a flood plain. The makeshift footprint we had put down under the tent was collecting the water like a kiddy pool. As Gavin joyfully climbed over Daniel and I, not recognizing that it was bed time because there was no place for him to lie down, we decided to call it quits. We grabbed Gavin's rain jacket, jumped in the car, and drove back to Austin (about 30 minutes). Gavin passed out in the car quickly after his eventful day, and Daniel and I spent the entire drive home rationalizing our decision. How it was best for Gavin. How we were being responsible parents. How we had not wimped out, we're still hardcore. And just to prove it (and because we had had such a great day Saturday), we woke up Sunday morning and headed back out to the campsite for Sunday's music. So Gavin attended his first multiday music festival and camped, mostly.