danceboy

Last week mz_hotspur asked to come to the gym with me sometime. So on Saturday I abducted her from ricevermicelli and off we went.

She was a great lifting partner. She did a LOT. She squatted a 20 lb EZ bar (bear in mind she doesn't yet weigh 50 lbs), pressed a wide grip bar (I'm guessing 10 lbs?), progressed from 5 to 10 to 15 lbs on a lat pulldown, I forget what she managed on the V bar triceps pushdown, discovered that she's just plain too short for the hyperextension machine. She did respectably on the battle rope, she curled a 5 lb dumbbell,... She did all the stuff.

Also, trying to demonstrate & describe proper form improved my form. I squatted more than I have since my medical excitement a year ago, and it wasn't a reach. It felt, well, not _easy_, but I had planned to stay within myself, and I felt like I was doing that despite setting a recent PR.

She wanted to stay there all day and lift all the things. I wanted to get food into her, so we left after she'd done at least some of most everything.

After lunch we hung out at home for a while and read, then off we went to see roller derby. We had a blast, then attended the after party. She saw a circle of women dancing and instantly realized that her place in the universe right then was to be in the middle of that circle, dancing with all of them. So she did. It was her dance floor, she graciously allowed other people to use it.

Three separate people came up to me to let me know that there is junior derby, and I could sign her up, they'd be happy to have her. I think they just want to make sure that she keeps coming to their parties...

Over the last couple of days I've been playing music while making dinner.

Tonight the kids both asked for Barracuda & Ballroom Blitz.

I just very carefully accidentally left their computer open to a British Invasion playlist.

Tonight schr0dinger asked if we could watch West Side Story. I tried to act as though I wasn't dancing inside when I said "Okay".

When we got to America, he was enthralled. Quotes include "Oh _burn_!", "She didn't say that!", and "That's like *rowr*!".

mzhotspur liked the dancing and such, but just didn't get nearly as far into it.

schr0dinger should be asleep. We put him to bed over an hour ago.

He claims that he was scared of the dark. That's why he had to build his own night light. From snap circuits. In the dark.

As I was headed up stairs to go to bed just now, mzhotspur wandered out of her room and said "I need to cuddle.".

She was like unto a limpet attached to my chest for maybe five minutes. Then all of a sudden she was done, so I carried her back to bed, tucked her in, got a promise that I could give her a kiss tomorrow, and went off on my way.

Woe is me. Woe.

Yesterday schr0dinger lost a tooth.

I am not ready for him to have lost a tooth.

Three weeks ago (to the day I believe) he made his first real-time, improvised, conversational joke.

About a month and a half ago ago he started taking the kids version of the parkour class that I take.

Thankfully, mzhotspur is relenting in her "no hugs for daddy" campaign...

Yesterday, on the way in to pick up mzhotspur, I asked schr0dinger if he knew that I loved him.

"Daddy," he said with an air of patient resignation to my slowness of wit "I _always_ knew that."

The only down side is that he didn't let me snuggle him.

Yesterday, mzhotspur was singing softly to herself:
"Spiderman, Spiderman
You make me happy,
when skies are grey"

At Arisia I bought the kids a "Giant Cthulhu Dice". Yes, I know "dice" is plural. I assume that Steve Jackson knows it too, but didn't want to hear all the bad puns that selling a "Giant Cthulhu Die" would entail.

Anyway. The kids were playing with it, and I asked mzhotspur if she could say "Tekeli li". She said "No!". Then, from a space behind her mother's legs, I heard a very soft, sweet voice piping up with "Tekeli li li li".

"A 'pamp' is a lunchbag that you bring to the trapeze store."

--schr0dinger