Genevieve's First Dance

This is a guest blog authoring by Marilee.


Here’s a photo of Genevieve’s first dance with Mama. She was just one month old, and someone snapped a photo of us waltzing to Last Gaspé. That’s not why I’m making a guest appearance in “Fatherhood in three easy lessons” though. Tonight my big three and a half year old went to the Tuesday night Contra Dance with me while Reesa had a special date with Daddy at home.

Genevieve’s been very excited about going to the dance with me. Today, she’s been really careful to be helpful, cooperative and curb any screaming tantrums she may have otherwise been inclined to having. (Nope, I’m not above using bribes...) We danced a total of four dances (if you count walking around the dance floor while the band warmed up with a waltz). Steve, the caller, called very simple dances and made good suggestions to me about how to modify the dances for her, and the dancers made great accommodations for her.

On the way home we had a very advanced conversation about where babies come from (grist for another guest appearance perhaps), and when we got home she bubbled over to Daddy about how much she liked the dance. Here are the high points as she reported them.

“Bill was there playing music.”
“There were two fiddles and Bill was playing the banjo”
“It was kind of a grown-up dance and there weren’t any other kids there”
“We did a Do-si-do” (It surprised me she remembered the do-si-do since she dealt with the do-si-do by standing still until someone grabbed her for the next part of the dance.)
“We did a star which is different from a pointy star you draw on paper”
And her favorite part was when Mommy picked her up “And swung me ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round”

Yep, my baby’s growing up.