Yee Haw
TheMonk and Swee’Pea have a little musical table which has a million little buttons and dials and nobs that all elicit music when pushed, rotated or moved. Some of this music is better than others. For instance, I could do without the Cello-sounding thing. On the other hand, I’m quite fond of the little lid that opens up to jazzy scat singing.
Bri, is quite the muscial prodigy and loves to listen to music. You give her a beat and she’ll start swaying in beat to the music. She has soul and rhythm that could only come from her quarter Mexican, Quarter African-American genes. TheMonk, on the other hand, has not taken to music so quickly as his sister. He enjoys it, but has not quite mastered the art of rocking to the beat in quite the same way as Bri.
Now, in addition to being a quarter Mexican and a quarter African American, TheMonk is also half white. And not just any white – it’s redneck white. My white roots go back to Kansas while Andrea’s go back to Texas. So, maybe we just weren’t playing the right music. You see, one of the dials on the little musical table plays banjo music. It is probably the last place on earth (at least the last place in Southern California) one could actually hear banjo music. It also happens to be the only music to date that drives TheMonk to boogie. As soon as he hears that banjo strumming, he’ll rock his head violently front to back – not to the beat, mind you, but it’s a start. In fact, his dancing is so bad that he reminds me of Kevin Bacon’s best friend, Willard, in Footloose who doesn’t know how to dance.
So I’m afraid that TheMonk might have inherited my redneck gene. The good news is that TheMonk doesn’t know he can’t dance and if I’m doing my job right, he won’t care what other people think when he gets older. And there is still hope. Willard eventually learned how to dance.
12 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Not to worry. Locke was always the dancer with our twins but when Lola found my African drum, we realized she’s got plenty of rhythm — she just had to find her instrument. I’m sure Lola and JT will learn to dance later.
Comment by Brenda — May 22, 2006 @ 6:39 am
Claudia is the one with rhythm in my family, although lately Ian has taken a liking to the bongo drums that we have.
Do you think that comes from my New England heritage or Gabe’s German heritage?
Comment by Sarah — May 22, 2006 @ 7:19 am
Drums get the Munchkin going. She LOVES drums. I saw the look on her face when she saw the taiko drums going at the Cherry Blossom Festival, and I panicked. I have a horrible vision of my future and it includes a drum set. Both my kids love music, and the Munchkin is our dancer (so far). While I loved ballet as a little girl, the Webmaster has RHYTHM (and his redneck roots stretch into Kentucky). He loves to dance whenever we get the opportunity. I think Baby Boy will get more into the beat once he can walk. So I would wait until JT and Bri can walk before the REAL fun begins.
Comment by Deanna — May 22, 2006 @ 10:56 am
I am sorry to say that Grandfather had very little natural rhythm…okay, he had none. He was certified as such by a “sista” after she tried to teach him a few basic moves with “Honey, somes got it and somes don’t and you don’t.” It didn’t stop him from committing social suicide when ever the opportuntiy arose.
Comment by Grandmother — May 22, 2006 @ 10:57 am
What is that saying? “Dance like nobody’s watching”? Well there you go! I’ll just cross my fingers that no one describes JT’s dancing like Elaine’s on Seinfeld: “It’s like a dry-heave set to music!”
Comment by samantha — May 22, 2006 @ 4:47 pm
zoe and lucy love music (which is good since they don’t love art, which i’ve written about a few times) and they actually have pretty good taste too, which is lucky since my tolerance for sharon, lois and bram is quite low. recently, however, they discovered the “sample” key on the big casio keyboard we have stashed upstairs. it plays a VERY casio keyboard-esque rendition of the Nutcracker Suite and man do my girls love to dance to that. i hope to someday get some video taken and post on my blog, but until then, let me just say, these girls know how to shake some tail to bad casio-tone.
also, being from and in N.C., i’d be happy to give you a little primer on GOOD banjo music so you can keep JT’s boogie on.
Comment by laurie — May 22, 2006 @ 7:35 pm
What’s sad is that I heard all of the music you were talking about it my head. I need to get Lauren some new toys.
Ba-da-bap-bee-da-diddly-bop-bee-bop-wow!
Comment by ieatcrayonz — May 23, 2006 @ 1:12 pm
We have the SAME table! B&B both love it, but only Brayden tries to shake his butt when they play the music. I would say I hope he takes after his father in the rhythm department because I have NONE, but the last time I saw him dance was the night I met him, and I don’t remember so much about it.
And btw, there’s nothing wrong with a little banjo.
Comment by Amy — May 24, 2006 @ 8:31 am
Everyone can dance to Laura Berkner! Buzz, buzz, buzz…
Comment by Katie — May 24, 2006 @ 3:38 pm
No, he inherited the “other” 50% redneck gene on the other
side of the family! By the way, I was a damn good dancer
in my younger days!! Your Dad and I cleared the dance floor
once!
Comment by Raina — May 24, 2006 @ 4:21 pm
My 4 year old son STILL boogies to any song that catches his ear. We have several videos of him dancing to everything from the Sex & the City theme song to a tune from a video game. The kid has no rythm whatsoever. But he loooooooves to dance. And we love that he loves it.
Comment by Andie D. — May 24, 2006 @ 9:03 pm
My Okapis are half Ecuadorian and half white, but Philly white so they got some hip. They LOVE music and dancing. They got Dan Zanes for their last birthday and when we put it on, they love getting their instruments (he gets the guitar, she gets the harmonica or recorder) and they jam together. It is absolutely incredible the power of music even on our youngins. Of course, it still has a powerful effect on me, too.
Comment by JGS — May 28, 2006 @ 7:24 pm