My Dancing Queen

I think I have already stated, and I’m sure I will bring it up again, that Tessie really knows how to get under my skin.  She is an expert at driving me completely insane.  Before, during, and after lunch today she was in prime form.  I can’t even remember why I was so frustrated with her but I remember the frustration just fine.  After lunch she finally settled into a more tolerable behavior and asked if she could have a dance party.  I put on Adele for her and she began to dance around the living room.

Watching Tessie dance always makes me fall back in love with her no matter how angry I’ve been.  She really feels the music and acts it out.  After every performance she is beaming and takes a very big bow.  Today, after dancing to a few songs, she asked me to  play the last song again and said the show was about to start.  Nick and I sat in the living room to watch and sure enough, we got a show.

Tessie put on an interpretive dance show to Adele’s song “Turning Tables.”  She danced with her arms and hands delicately floating through the air, her face serious and filled with more emotion than I would expect from a three and a half year old.  She moved around her “dance floor,” a play mat on the living room floor, with deliberate steps.  At times she sat down and moved her hands as if speaking to someone and at other times she marched to the rhythm of the music, focused the entire time.  She ended the dance sitting, her hands floating on either side of her, in character the whole time.

I cried the entire time watching her.  The imagination that poured out of her was palatable.  She emanated joy and I couldn’t help but get caught up in her performance.  I had never been more proud or more in love with her.  As far as I was concerned she was on stage at some famous opera house, playing to a packed house.  Any aggravation I had felt earlier had melted away as if it had never existed. 

My daughter is an enigma.  She is so unbelievably imaginative and spontaneous.  I get so frustrated with her at times and we rarely have a day without some sort of melt down, but I wouldn’t change her in the smallest of ways.  Today, for about four minutes, her true self shone through.  I am lucky to be blessed with this kind of beauty in my life.