Puppy seems to be missing whatever gene it is that makes toddlers dance like maniacs to any music. Each week at library story time, as kids bounce spastically around the room like so much popcorn, Puppy sits back and silently observes. A wee anthropologist, attempting to understand the primal ritual unfolding before him.
Every so often T-Dog and I try to get him to dance at home. We demonstrate, dancing around the family room with wild abandon. Puppy just gives us withering looks, as if to say, "Big people, please, show some dignity."
Tonight we went to a local art festival, pushing Puppy through the booths in his little red stroller. After buying our dinner, we plopped down on a grassy hillside overlooking the main stage. A punk rock bluegrass band was playing, all mohawks, cowboy hats, fiddles and banjos. (It was as odd as it sounds.) Staring at the stage, Puppy strained at his stroller straps. As soon as he was free, he started bopping around, stamping his feet and waving his stubby arms to the music.
Puppy, the perpetual wallflower, was dancing. He danced and danced, grooving in circles around a nearby tree. It was so fun to watch. Even people sitting nearby looked over, smiling.
Apparently it wasn't that he doesn't dance, but that he has discriminating and rather eclectic tastes in music. I love this aspect of parenting, that just when you think you know something about your child, he surprises you.
6 comments:
I thought the bee lacked this mysterious gene too. All her little eleven month old friends would be sitting around the circle listening to Victor Vito, or some inane crap at gymboree and clapping their hands and bopping their tiny little bodies. She would just stare at them like they had three heads.
Then one day I was in a cranky mood and I turned on some Nirvana at home. Lithium was the first song to hit the air and you would have thought that she had dance fever.
She also enjoys old school rock-a-billy and Dylan. She doesn't like the beatles. She loves the cure. And she likes anything sung by Elmo...
Wanted to add. Her mom loves sappy crappy love songs and people like Michael Bolton. I tease the queen all the time that Allies love of awesome music is a direct rebellion to nine months of "The Quiet Storm"
Puppy listened to a lot of metal music in utero--maybe that has something to do with it!
What a fun post!
This cracked me up:
"Big people, please, show some dignity."
I love this post! There's something magical about discovering our children's preferences, isn't there?
When Hester was 2 months old, her favorite song (read: the only song that would make her stop screaming in the car) was The Shins' New Slang. She still loves it, and we still put it on repeat when she gets fussy.
Oh yeah, and Nate's absolute all-time favorite song is no children's song, nope, not my kid. It's Maroon 5's "Makes Me Wonder," sung with the mostly right but somewhat wrong lyrics and all. ;)
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