Day 2 Part 2. We're headed to Broadway!

We had tickets to the 2pm show for Spiderman Turn off the Dark. We headed to Times Square, which was just a block away.

We were dangerously close the the M&M store.

Yay! Our show had a huge billboard display.

And here is the view of Times Square from the front of our hotel.

New Years Eve ball drop.

Massive billboards everywhere.

Mc Donald's at Times Square!

Nik has a fascination with Mc Donald's. Every city we visit, he always wants to check out a Mc Donald's. This trip, he picked out Mc Donald's at Times Square. He gave it the seal of approval. Total for lunch was $29.79, so it was slightly more expensive than a normal Mc Donald's.

Nik was nice enough to carry Noah's headphones for a bit. What a great brother.

While we were having lunch, we noticed a woman in a Hello Kitty costume, carrying a tray of food in one hand, and a big Hello Kitty head in the other. She was followed by a sweaty looking Minnie Mouse. I guess this is where the characters meet for lunch.

I loved walking around Times Square. The lights, the sounds, the crowd. It was all great. And the kids seemed to enjoy it too. Alex had seen this all before, but he loved that we were there with him this time. 

After lunch, we headed to Foxwoods Theater. It was just 2 blocks away, but guess what was across the street? That's right. Another Mc Donald's! 

There was a line to get into the theater, so we took our place with the rest of the crowd. 

The line to get into Spiderman Turn off the Dark.

While we waited in line, we noticed that the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum was across the street. There was a Wolverine wax figure in the window and Alex pointed it out to the boys. Noah said "I can't see without my glasses." Poor kid. Alex used the zoom on my camera to take a picture so Noah could see. What a smart dad!

Before long, we were allowed to enter the theater. It was beautiful inside, but the crowd was too thick to allow me to take pictures. We still  had about 20 minutes until the show started, so we headed to the souvenir booth. We ended up buying shirts for the boys, a program, and a poster. The total came out to $120. After a visit to the bathroom, we headed for our seats. Noah seemed very excited to see the show. 

We had great seats in the flying circle. Because we did not know how Nik would handle being up on the balcony, or how Noah would handle the noise, we selected seats at the end of the row. This would allow for a quick exit, if necessary. The boys seemed totally happy before the show. Noah was talking non-stop. You can kind of see Noah's headphones around his neck in the pictures. It's fashionable for people to walk around wearing large headphones now, so Noah just fits right in. And his headphones decrease sounds, but don't totally cut off sound, so that is an added bonus.

The stage before the show started.

When the show started, Noah went ahead and put his headphones on. But he seemed totally relaxed.

Just to give you an idea of what the show is like, here's a youtube clip. Click on the picture to play.

I picked the perfect seats for us. We were on the first row of the balcony, so Spiderman flew right towards us several times. And he landed on our balcony several people away from us. It was perfect. No photography was allowed during the show, but here are still shots from the production company. 

This was our performance, and we were seated to the right just out of the camera shot.

The entire time, Noah was loving every minute of the show. He had a huge smile on his face. Nik was also loving it, but I wish we would have bought an extra set of headphones, because I did notice him cover his ears a few times. But all in all, this was a huge success. Best $400 we ever spent!

I can't even put into words what it was like for us to sit together as a family and enjoy a Broadway musical. It was amazing to see my boys enjoying something without anxiety or fear. When the show ended and the lights came up, Noah jumped from his chair and shouted "Mom, I want to be a super hero! Can I be a super hero!" He was so excited.  Alex and I were so excited that Noah was able to sit through the performance, and actually enjoyed it. And Nik handled sitting on the balcony without batting an eye. It was definitely one of those moments in life. A moment where we could point to it and say this was probably one of the most amazing experiences that we had together. The five years spent struggling, feeling isolated and totally at a loss for what to do to help our son. And finally a moment to sit back and say WE DID THIS! What an incredible day. It still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about everything that we went through to get here. Thank you, God!

Next up, part 3 of Day 2!