Already a stand out at two

It's hard to believe that we have already arrived at that point in our parenting lives when our family calendar is defined by various children's activities.  Calvin may not be in school yet, but strangely enough the year end has brought with it a plethora of celebrations and activities: last Friday morning we attended the Summer Reading Program Kick-Off Party at our local library, complete with cake, comedian, and petting farm; on Tuesday we will attend the first of two year end picnics, this one being for his dance class, then the second one, for his music class, takes place next Friday.  The most notable of all these events, however, was the one that took place today - his very first dance recital.  The performance has been a whole year in the making.  Calvin and Cortney started the weekly classes last September.  At the first class Calvin mostly watched and asked to be picked up, but his improvement was steady from there, and by show time today he was incredibly willing to walk out on the stage of the rented middle school auditorium (with his mother, of course, and the other toddlers from his class) and go through the small, choreographed circle dance that we have been practicing since that very first class oh so many months ago.  He "performed" very well, only forgetting to twirl one time, and his determined calm throughout the whole affair was refreshing, but what really made him stand out amongst all his dancing peers?  Of all the performers, ranging in age from 2 years to 4th grade, he was the only boy.

The superfluity of pictures this month has warranted a second June album, so more pictures can be found in the new June 2008, too album.

Fancy footwork

Look out America, there's a new So You Think You Can Dance contestant in the making! He's no Danny Tidwell (who, by the way, should have won this season) yet, but he practices his newfound art every time he hears anything remotely resembling music, and we've captured a few choice moments for your viewing pleasure. The first part of this video was taken last week, after his second dance class, while the rest of the video was taken this afternoon, after his third class. We like to imagine that we see improvement.

Music credits go to Fisher Price, Propellerheads, and Mario Spinetti.

Strange Fruit

We spent both last night and tonight in downtown Ann Arbor taking in the sites, smells, tastes, and sounds of the Top of the Park Summer Festival.  We look forward to this local annual tradition and try to make it to the month long festival evenings as often as possible, and both the weather and the entertainment this weekend made it the perfect opportunity.  Who can pass up the chance to watch people performing a modern theatrical dance routine from atop 4 meter fiber glass poles?  We enjoyed them enough the first night to take them in again tonight, this time from much closer seats, and the second time was the charm - being almost underneath the performers made all the difference and Calvin even sat still for 15 out of the 20 minutes of the performance, sitting in his stroller, bouncing up and down in time with the music (yes, we swear that he is already developing a good sense of rhythm), his eyes glued to those strange people high over his head, a wide smile glued on his face.  This wonderful performing group goes by the name of Strange Fruit, appropriate since strange would definitely describe it - strange and really cool.  Coincidentally, that is probably what Calvin thought of the raspberry sorbet that his gram was feeding him - with each tiny bite he would shiver, then giggle, then ask for more.  That continued for only a few bites, though, before he decided that darting in and out of the sidewalk traffic was way more fun and got him way more attention from his adoring fans (read: strangers walking by).

There are, of course, lots more Strange Fruit pictures in this week's photo album. 

Techno Baby

The kid's got the moves.  Clearly he learned more about dancing than he did about love and marriage at the wedding we attended this past weekend because he came home with a new skill.  He'll dance to anything, even radio commercials, although techno (in this clip it's Propellerheads) and African rhythms are his favorite.  Check it out:

Becoming parents

We decided to take advantage of Calvin's easy going nature and 3 week old portability by going to Top of the Park tonight.  The weather was fantastic and we really enjoyed the evening out, as well as the all too fattening food.   We thought that would be the interesting part of our evening but, while it was fun, it was not the highlight.  Instead we came home and topped off the evening by exploring our own collection of folk music.  The trip through our music player quickly became a vocal exercise, and Jon even played some of it on the piano.  Though Calvin slept through the performance we sang to him for hours, even video taping some of the fun.  We both remember the wonderful gift of music and song that our parents gave each of us and we want to share that with our own son.  Of course it may be too early for Calvin to enjoy it, or for him to recognize the nostalgia that was thick in the room, but somehow we feel that it brought us that much closer to being parents in the sense that we understand.