bless the beasts & the children

Oh yeah - S. and I attended this years' Toddler Dance Recital on Saturday, starring a friend's 5 and 3 year old girls. 3 year old has now reached the mark on the "you must be this tall to pirouette" sign, so she was also participating in the animal-faerie-unicorn mindfuck, shenanigans you may recall from last year. Spouse of 2007 Award goes to me, for not forcing the N to join us.

I have nothing to report that isn't an exact repeat of Dance Report '06, except that five seconds after the loudspeaker announcement "no food or drink in the auditorium otherwise we'll get EVICTED and be forced to hold these recitals in the parking lot OMG!!!!1", S. threw an entire steaming cup of 7-11 coffee onto the floor.

Anyways. Oh my god kids, when did they get so freaking awesome? Is it just that this is a truly funny age to be around? Is my cold, black heart melting a little more with each passing year? WTF is going on here?

S. has this monster skill: an ability to simply shoot a child a look, half a second at most, and instantly transform said child into a raving lunatic. I don't really know how she does it. I think children and S. communicate on the same brain wavelengths or something. I walk into the kitchen to get a drink and everyone's calmly playing with toys, 30 seconds later I walk back in and the girls and their baby brother have hog-tied S. with Barbie clothes, she's laying on the floor shivering as they scream like banshees ("What time is it? IT's CRAZY TIME!!!!") and looks at me and whispers "Move slowly. They smell fear. It's like being in a room full of tiny pink velocoraptors."

A typical conversation from Sat. afternoon:

5 Year Old, holding pillow up to her ear: "RING RING. ANSWER YOUR PILLOW! It's ringing inside your head!"
Me: "Oh, sure, of course. How do I answer it again?"
5 Year Old: "By raising your EYEBROW!!!!!! (cue collapsing in fit of giggles until red-faced and sweaty)

It's like performance art, or that time with your college roommate during that LSD experience he had where all he wanted to do was read you his poetry while taking off all his clothes. Only, you know, if he had also been really, really short and missed naptime.