She was shy in the beginning. Nervous. With a flush-red face and grinning from ear to ear. Giggling. She was happy that her little brother was there at first, and she carried, dragged, and pulled Summit around the gymnasium like a security blanket, to take all eyes off of her. I thought she might pull his arm out of his socket, and I'm pretty sure that he was thinking the same thing. But before I knew it, her cardigan, boots, and socks were off, and she ditched her little brother for her friends and spent the night skipping wildly in circles around the pack of children who were shaking their groove thangs. (Which reminds me... she definintely has Matt's moves, so we MUST get her in dance lessons ASAP!) Really. It was so wonderful. I watched her morph from this timid little girl going to her very first school dance to this uninhibited, free-spirited social butterfly anxious to dance to each and every song that DJ threw down.
And it was soooo funny to watch these kids. I remember my own elementary school soirees. Back then, my dad was the PE teacher, and he put on all the dances. However, in those days the kids weren't so willing to show their stuff; there were more wall flowers than groove shakers, and the boys weren't so much smaller than the girls. But not here. Not this night. These kids were ready to take on the world. The oldest kids were 5th graders, and it was hilarious to see the "couples." In all my life, I will never forget this one "date" where the boy was this skinny little 50-pound-soaking-wet-4-foot-tall thing donning a lavender shirt with black dress pants pulled up to his chest, and his girl was no less than 100 pounds and 5 and a half feet tall, decked in a lovely white lace dress. They danced the night away, so calm and self-assured, which made me nervous when they tried to do the trust fall for each other. She could clearly have caught 10 of him, but when he went to catch her, I almost stepped in to stop the inevitable disaster. Fortunately, she must have been thinking the same thing, and she stopped herself before she gave him all of her weight. Though, bless his heart, he was totally prepared to show her how much she should trust him.
But it was the music that absolutely made me feel as old-fashioned as my parents. There were songs that I couldn't believe would be played at an elementary school dance. Like the one by Kesha...you know... the one where she sings about brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack (Daniels) and staying up all night. Or the "Bottoms Up" song that goes: "Bottoms up, bottoms up, ey, what's in ya cup. Got a couple bottles, but a couple ain't enough." WHAT?!?!!?!! I am going to hold on to the notion that these kids don't know what the lyrics mean, but come on.
Nevertheless, the night was a success, and my Ella got to dance "The Cupid Shuffle" beside her favorite boy, Jackson. He's a second-grader in her class (she's a first-grader, but she got placed in a blended first-second grade class this year). Jackson is a hot topic in our household. She claims to like the way he writes. "He's got really nice handwriting, Mommy, really," she likes to say. But, I know the look in her eye. She's got a crush. A sweet little grade-school crush. It was so adorable to see her watching where he was on the dance floor to make sure the cute little boy wearing the Boston Redsox baseball cap backwards was close by.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, i can't believe this!
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