PBK's Standards Are Slipping

On Tuesday, The Boy, The Girl and I went up to Old Orchard Mall, in Skokie, for the Pottery Barn Kids Singalong. They've been sponsoring singalongs at their stores for a couple of years now, holding them on some basis of regularity -- some time between quarterly and semiannually. In the past, they've hired some of our favorite Old Town School of Folk Music teachers/singers--either current or alumni--from the school's Wiggleworms program. So I was looking forward to some catchy lyrics and/or folk music renditions from Julie Frost and her guitar.

But instead, they had some guy with a keyboard and a microphone set-up. I should have known that it was going to be bad when the store was not mobbed with high-end strollers. The guy himself was fine. The Boy and the other 10 kids in the audience seemed to enjoy his Hokey-Pokey and other standard (tired) kids' song fare. The Girl was a bit like me and seemed more interested in protecting her PBK Anywhere Chair than in listening to the music.

Afterwards, we had a snack and played on the recently-recovered dragon play structure just outside the store. We checked out the koi at the fish pond on the other side of the mall, and then went home for lunch/naps.