From early on, my wife has called Marcel “Tiny Dancer.” I believe it’s inspired by the title of the Elton John song, but not the lyrics. Frankly, I don’t remember what Marcel did to invoke the reference. But it is apt.
Still it’s hard to make that claim, sometimes. There’s a tinier person in the house, for one thing. For another thing, Marcel’s vocabulary and maturity often make it easy to forget that she’s still just a four year-old little girl. Size and capacity, however, are the only hindrance to the claim, because she absolutely loves dancing.
The first hint was her enthusiasm for the movement class at her fancy daycare. Over a year ago, she’d come home doing these startling things, like throwing her hands over her head then falling to the floor, where’d she’d push herself in semi-circle. Later, the yoga tutor that the school brought in for the kids offered that Marcel was her most focused student.
We took those cues–and Marcel less enthusiastic embrace of her soccer classes–to enroll her in ballet. She loves ballet. We never have any trouble getting her out of bed to go to ballet.
The funniest episode, however, involved rock music.
Sometimes, we gather in the kitchen or office and listen to the iPod or iTunes. One evening, Nelly Furtado’s imminently danceable tunes started blasting. Marcel wiggled and whirled accross the kitchen floor, as the rest of tried to catch up. She left us in the dust, however, with one particular move.
She climbed up on the chair, wiggled, looked over her shoulder and, just after flashing a mischievous smile , threw her nose up with all the haughtiness of royalty, turned away and wiggled to the beat some more. I don’t think any of us held our composure in the wake of THAT.
To be honest, the implications of her Madonna-like command of a rock performance are a little scary, but in a tiny dancer, it’s just joy.
