dance, he said

Jonah loves music (“Mee-you-gick!” he says). He now knows that Mee-you-gick comes out of our computers and so he points and demands it when the mood strikes him. We have a few kid CDs loaded into our laptops. Tonight, we played They Might Be Giants, “Here Come the 123s” while I fed Jonah dinner, or rather placed foods on the tray in front of him for him to feed himself (he has excellent spoon control, you know.)

The meal was going to begin with spinach. I had a small pot of water boiling on the stove, but before I could get the bag of organic-chopped out of the freezer, Jonah announced a menu change.

“BOWLIES!” He declared from his highchair. (This is his word for blueberries.)

Bowlies it is then. I reached past the spinach to the bag of frozen, wild (an appellation which means verrry tiny, it turns out) unsprayed; dumped those into the pot instead, fishing them out with a slotted spoon a few seconds later and placing them in a festive orange bowl with a suction cup on the bottom to help prevent dumping.

“Like it!” Jonah declared as he delicately picked the tiny berries from the bowl and popped them into his mouth. Within minutes, his fist was entirely purple, as was the lower half of his face.

I pressed forward with the original plan. “Would you like some spinach?” I asked him.

“Pinash!” he declared his assent.

“With yogurt?”

“YoGURT!” he agreed.

I quickly defrosted, placed in festive blue bowl with suction cup bottom, mixed in yogurt, added spoon. And he dove in, deploying said excellent spoon control, with most globs making the trip successfully from bowl to mouth, others settling on his bib, in the folds of his neck.

And that’s when the song came on.

“Triops has three eyes…”

“Dance!” he said. “Up! Mommy!”

I looked at his sticky purple hand, the dollops of yogurt on his arms, spinach dripping down his shirt.

“Wouldn’t you like a bath first?”

“Dance! Up!”

I removed his bib, implored Scott to take the toddler to his bath. Certainly we could dance after?

Jonah fought and squirmed in Scott’s arms, shouted again, “Dance!”

Who am I to deny this child?

I took him in my arms and we started bouncing to the music, spinning and swaying. Scott was dancing too — all three of us bopping around in our tiny kitchen as the song blared from tinny laptop speakers; Jonah grinning like it was the greatest day, ever.

Yay, us!

Triops has three eyes!

And as I glance over the shoulder on which the boy’s arm was resting, I notice him gingerly holding the purple hand aloft, as if he knew, that way, it wouldn’t stain my shirt.