Greetings from Sesame Place... and special greetings to Zoe and Cookie

I will update with a ton of photos when I get home, but we are at Sesame Place, our last blast before I head back to school to ready the new library on Monday. We went all out this time, including the Dine With Me character lunch for the boys. They loved it, especially Jimmy. But that would be an understatement of what really happened...

The moment we walked in, Jimmy said "Cookie Monster" in his tiny little voice. We knew that we had to be sure that Jimmy got a minute with Cookie. The characters all floated around the room - it was a great experience. At times Jimmy found it a little overwhelming, but he really enjoyed his visits with Ernie and Zoe. Actually, Zoe hung out for a while. I always tell the characters about Jimmy - it often makes a difference in their approach to him - and Zoe took a lot of time. I was babbling on about him and Zoe pointed at me and then made muscles with her arms. "Your strong." I was so touched. So I told her about him and my other kids at my school and she actually pointed at herself, crossing her arms, and then point at me. "I love you." Eventually she said goodbye to the boys and moved on, but Zoe was just so sweet.

Jimmy told the character handler of Jimmy's desire to see Cookie Monster - he had to, because Cookie had been hanging out on the other side of the room. Right after he finished his song, he cruised over to our table. Up until this point, Jimmy greeted the characters warily at first. When Cookie Monster arrives, he smiled a bit. He was excited to see him. Cookie hung out for a few minutes too. We told him about Jimmy saying his name when he arrived, that Jimmy loved Cookie Monster on Sesame Street, even that the first time I realized Jimmy understood spoken language was when Jimmy laughed at one of Cookie Monsters jokes on the show.

It was such a great experience, I could not have imagined it getting any better. But it did. As we were walking over to the big play area to let them run around, three college aged kids were coming my direction. This very petite and pretty girl walked up to me and started with "You don't know me..." It was Zoe out of costume. She told me that I was amazing and just kind of told me what she was trying to express to me when we were at the event, when she couldn't talk. Then the guy with her spoke - he was Cookie Monster. He said was very touched that Jimmy was so pleased to see him. I am just sorry that Jimmy wasn't with me. He had gone ahead to the playground. I told them about the blog, so I am hoping they will visit. I don't think I told them enough how amazing they made our day.