Monday, August 21, 2006

Dance About It


It all started when I bought her a new DVD/CD combo by They Might Be Giants called "Here come the ABCs." She loves it. We can watch the DVD and listen to the CD in the car. Fortunately, the songs are pretty catchy--the kind of good kid songs you don't realize is still on even after the kid is out of the car. I mean, I'll drop her off at school and will suddenly come to the realization about halfway home that I'm still singing along to them. The CD is great for all you parents that get a little tired of listening to various versions of "The Wheels on the Bus" or "Itsy Bitsy Spider."

Oh, but the DVD is another story altogether. Sure, it's pretty much the same songs that are on the CD--the CD I just gushed about in the previous paragraph--but watching the DVD just got really old really quickly. See, Zoey discovered that she really, really loves to dance. And the music is just so darn dance-able, that she just dances and sings her way through most of the songs. Which is great, cute and adorable and all that, but she insists that I dance with her. Now, this was fun, for the first week, and great exercise. But now I'm really tired of dancing to these songs over and over and over again. She's whittled down her repertoire to about three songs that we must watch, which means I'm also constantly playing VJ. I tried to teach her how to use the remote, but she wasn't interested. So we have to fire up the DVD player, wait patiently for the unalterable and unskipable opening bits (she especially loves it when the Disney Sound logo comes up), and then I have to operate the menu using the remote's really, really small buttons so we can pick and choose the songs she wants to hear. And here's the thing about Zoey: She takes forever to make up her mind sometimes. It tries my patience, and I have to remind myself not to get exasperated with her. Anyway, we inevitably listen to the D&W song, Fake Believe and E Eats Everything many, many times in a row, with Zoey constantly hounding me to "Dance about it" with her.

So, to sum up, CD good, DVD tiring. Additionally, Zoey's really taken with D and W. I mean, the actual letters, D and W. They're her new best friends. I can't help but wonder what some other people are thinking when they see a little girl having whole conversations with a letter. I have drawn a million D's and W's this past month, because she makes me. "Mommy, draw D! Make a sad D--draw his tears! Now make a happy D--because he found his crown!" "Draw W with D! Make him sad! Now make him mean!" It's a little bit odd.

This dancing thing doesn't seem to be going away. Now we have to also watch "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" over and over, of course, skipping through most of the actual movie to get to the way more entertaining Oompa Loompa songs. They have some keen dance moves we've adopted. Otherwise, meh on the movie and Johnny Depp's way to perfect teeth.

I have taken what I feel is the most logical course of action: I enrolled her in a dance class. Specifically, it's 1/2 dance 1/2 gym, which is perfect. I had to get her tap shoes, ballet shoes and a leotard. It's insanely cute. And she loves her new tap shoes. Actually, the tap shoes are a hand-me-down from my old department head and mommy mentor, Cara. She gave two pairs to me before Z was even born, and one of them fits. (Thanks, Cara!) Now, thankfully, we haven't watched TMBG in over a week. Not that I'm out of the dance macabre yet--she's now obsessed with wearing her tap shoes and dancing noisily with them in the front hallway (one of the few rooms in the house without carpet). And I have to put music in her CD player so she can dance to it, and so I can "dance about it" with her. But hopefully, with this new class she'll get to channel some of that dancin' fool energy at least once a week without me.

She's only had one lesson, and spent a lot of time during that lesson running madly around the studio while her teachers yelled, "Zoey, Zoey, Zoey! Wait your turn!" over and over again. But her hearts in the right place. At least for now.

3 Comments:

Blogger Found in the Alley said...

X-stream-LEE cute. I'm still bummed that I didn't get in town in time to see y'all in May and this just makes it worse.

That stuff about favorite letters is weird. I don't recall any kid having a favorite letter although you'd think with the way Sesame Street glorifies individual letters that you're encouraged to pick one. Okay I pick S for superman, sweeney and because it's easy to draw like a puffy cloud or a snake. Does Zoey have a favorite D word? Dance perhaps? Or Diddle? Or maybe Dexterous?

A couple of weeks ago I might have opined to myself that I'd be stricter with an obsessing kid but I babysit a friend's kid on Mondays and Thursdays now and well, I have no opinions any more, I'm under her thumb.

10:05 AM  
Blogger Mari said...

Oh my god! Your new job is NANNY! I love it.

And no, I don't think she has a favorite D word, or a W word. She just thinks of them as her friends (her invisible friends). Actually, W is her friend. She calls D her "baby brother."

10:21 AM  
Blogger Found in the Alley said...

Debra Wendell - that's it! How you doing girl? I checked out your blog - wow living in the Mountains these days, cool (literally). Oh, I have a recipe for trout fried in bear grease if you want it. My cousin lives on the western slope. If you ever go that way I'll put you in touch. He's an interesting fellow. Mari (for whom he had a terrible crush) can tell you all about him.

Yes I'm a nanny but only for a few hours and the pay is simply job satisfaction. Little Paloma lives ony a few blocks away and her pop is in churchbus so I've watched her grow up just like Zoey but even closer. It's an amazing trip. We bang on the drums - she's a big fan of that. We climb in the park - also a big fan. We attempt to sit quietly and read - she's not so in to that. Yesterday we went with pop and Tricia to bet on the harness races. She liked that a lot too. Her pop is teaching her sign language. She knows sign language for the word "more." She uses that sign all the time. When the horses gallop by she gets excited and uses the "more" sign. It's so cute.

12:10 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home