Dance is Spelled D-N-A

My dad is a lover of music and has a knack for staying current despite being able to get senior discounts at the coffee house.  He has great taste in rock, but a spin through his CD changer will reveal an eclectic assortment of albums that change often, and may include Amy Winehouse, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, the Rolling Stones, and whatever else strikes his fancy.  He has better taste than most people and definitely better taste than, well, me.

A related talent is his fabulous dancing ability.  Many times he's taken to a crowded (or empty) dance floor and proceeded to spin, gyrate, wiggle, point, and shake his way into the dancing hall of fame.  To the casual onlooker (or mortified offspring) it looks a bit... weird.  Like something he should only do in the comfort and privacy of his own living room.

Fortunately, I know what it's really about.  Music moves him.  It moves him in ways that bring him happiness, and unselfconsciousness, and he just has a good time.  And why not?  I love to see him dance.  It makes me laugh and reminds me that happiness and mirth and a sense of abandon are all a healthy part of balancing life in our microanalyzed world.

This is where it gets even more interesting.  Soon after Beep was born, my dad gazed at her tenderly and, in an awed tone, made a profound and profoundly sweet comment on the family genetics carrying on into the future.  And so they will, in our sweet little girl with my eyes and her grandpa's long fingers. 

But if Grandpa ever needed proof of her lineage, he need look no further than this video I shot of the two of them dancing in the car.  Music moves her, too.

Conversations Heard In Our House Tonight

So it's been a while since I posted "Things Heard in Our House Tonight,"  and those posts have obviously been missed.  At least by me.  Tonight's edition will be a sequel- a brother- a cousin, if you will- to the typical "things heard."  It will contain riveting conversations. And by riveting I mean mildly amusing to a small portion of the population (on a good day).

Me: "Tongs! Tongs! Tongs!"
[Cabbage grabbing tongs and following the line of my pointed finger]
[Cabbage picking up disgusting, invasive, ill-fated scorpion with said tongs]
[Squishing of scorpion]
Cabbage, to scorpion: "How do you like me now?  You wanna come in our house again?"
Scorpion: No response.

Me: "Baby, do you want ice cream?"
Beep: "No thank you."
Me: "Would you like a cookie?"
Beep: "No thank you."
Me, to the room in general: "I brought home the wrong baby."

Me: "I bought these new cookies tonight."
Cabbage: "Oh, good.  What kind are they?"
Me: "Keebler Coconut Dreams."  Mmmsnarfscarfmunchmunch.
Cabbage: "Let me try a bite."
[bite]
Cabbage: "Those aren't very good.  They need more testing." Mmmsnarfscarfmunchmunch.

Me: "There is a huuuuuge baby in here." [pointing at 32+ week belly squirming with baby]
Cabbage: "Noooo.  There's a cute little baby in that cute little belly."
Me: "H.U.G.E. Baby. Huge.  There's not enough room for both of us in here."
Cabbage: "It's little."
Me, motioning from chest to groin: "This?  Is ALL baby, my friend.  ALL BABY."
Cabbage: "Little."
Me: "Stretch marks.  Heartburn.  Cantbendover.  Cankles.  Not little.  Big."

Me: "Ni-night, Baby.  I love you."
Beep: "I love you, Mama."
Me, a minute later to Cabbage: "I love our baby girl so much."
Cabbage: "She's something, isn't she?"
Me: "Yeah... Maybe we should've stopped while we were ahead."
Unborn baby: [cackling with glee and rubbing tiny hands together in anticipation of havoc yet to be wreaked]

Re-Entry

Hi guys!  Sorry for the absence, but... We have been on vacation!  We traveled to Wisconsin, land of beer, cheese and my childhood. 

We had a great time with friends and family and I have stories to tell... but we arrived home late last night, after airplane delays and standby flights.

By the time we landed, we all felt like this.

Today I studiously avoided unpacking a crapton of gear in favor of feeding carrots to horses and enjoying having a little playdate for Beep.  Let me assure you that our house is a disaster- filled suitcases boobytrap our bedroom, everything is dusty, and there is a weird-stale smell I can't trace. On the plus side we did manage to get by the grocery store today to get milk... and then the whole gallon leapt out the truck door to commit suicide on our driveway.  Oops.

Keep me in your thoughts while I am blazing away in re-entry...

Demise of the Baby Mullet

Cabbage and I have had some heated disagreements about the fate of our baby's mullet.  He didn't see it as a mullet at all, even though it was.  [this is my blog, so I win]  He referred to it as Beep's long, pretty hair.  As it grew longer (and the hair on the front half of her head remained short), I felt more and more that my baby was walking a dangerous line into Hair From the Eighties.  I didn't like it at all, but I was stuck.  I'd told him I would never cut her hair until or unless he agreed.  As weeks passed, I was so. tired. of looking at her scraggly ends and I sensed this could go on eternally... so I straight-up browbeat him into accepting a truce of sorts.   

I cajoled, pleaded, reasoned, and finally harassed him about it, telling him "You'll have to speak up if you want her to hear you- she can't hear you through the mullet."

He reluctantly agreed to (or at least shrugged and walked away when I AGAIN suggested) a trim of only the longest hair, just to clean up the ends.  I was gonna to take the heat outta that mullet.

Here, kitty kitty kitty.  Nice little baby mullet.

Snip, snip, snip in a line across the back, a little shaping angling up the sides, and I had just enough trimmed to save in a baggie as her first hair cut.

And my baby had a cute, neat little style.  I need to take more pictures- it really is adorable, it looks like a tiny bob.

And with that we bid adieu to the baby mullet. 

I suppose I shouldn't hold it against Cabbage that he was so attached to her old style.  After all, I have it on good authority he proudly wore one during the eighties.  It was long, proud, and P.E.R.M.E.D.  Yes, that's right.  So he was probably just feeling nostalgic every time he looked at her little hairs cascading softly against her collar...  Business in the front, party in the back.  Those were the days.

Beach Kid

Last summer I wrote about our periodic escape from chores as we retreated from the everyday and found a beach high in the limestone hills.

Then, my baby looked like this:

Sweet little cueball round-cheeked, flower-wearing Beep-baby...  Early on we learned to bundle her into a carseat and run away, seeking refuge from the heat and the daily grind.  We bypassed the revelry of our earlier prebaby times together in bars and crowded riverfronts and happily found ourselves filling bottles, applying gentle sunscreen, and strapping on a tiny sunhat.  We didn't need a 21-and-up crowd to have The Best Time Ever.

But time flies, and now our baby is a toddler.  She walks well- runs, actually- knows right from left, sings her ABCs, and points out cows, horses, and kids everywhere we go.  She's grown, of course, but as a petite two-year-old Beep is still portable.  On a daily basis I'm struck by the depth and breadth of her knowledge and understanding of her world, and her sparkling intelligence, but I often forget just how much she's actually grown.

Until I see a comparative picture like this:

Someone make the madness stop.