Dancing Fool

As I've mentioned before, Peapod is a little meek in most kid-centric social situations. But she's got glorious bold streaks in her which include wandering across vast soccer pitches while her Mom is practicing Spanish with her Latina nanny friend, climbing atop wheeled items (strollers, shopping carts, office chairs) and bouncing until her Mom catches her right before she careens onto the pavement, and dancing. My favorite is the dancing.

Her moves include bouncing, swaying back and forth, shaking her dinky booty, stomping her feet and -- this just in -- twirling!

Today, she busted out all her moves in two separate locations. The first was at the Michael Kors store at The Grove. As an aside, I don't recall that guy being such a big whoop until he got the Project Runway gig. I hope he's giving mad props to Heidi Klum wherever he goes. Anyway, the store is pretty hip. It's got mirrored shelving, a huge screen running a continuous loop of lanky girls working the catwalk, and music. Lots of wonderfully danceable, Euro-beat, electronica pop that matches the ambiance. It inspired my Pod of Peas to bust out her moves.

She started by leaning on the wallet display and shaking her booty, which instantly got the attention of Julie, the lovely shop keep who had greeted us. Once she had earned this small audience, she pulled out all the stops, reining in no fewer than four additional women who stopped looking at metallic handbags long enough to twirl with my daughter. And these were women who could really appreciate a decent metallic handbag, you could just tell. I was bursting with pride and hoping Peapod could somehow sense how much joy she had just created, all by her little self.

Later tonight, we went out to dinner at an old Pasadena favorite: La Fiesta Grande. I had forgotten that they always have mariachis perform on weekend nights, a fact that lit up Peapod the moment the first strumming bars floated into her ears. On the down side, she ate about 3.6 grams of food. On the upside, she entertained our entire side of the restaurant, even earning applause from the patrons and musicians at one point. The extent to which she enchanted the waitstaff seemed inversely proportional to the mass of food and dishes they were hoisting on their trays.

So as days go for Peapod, I must say it was pretty great. Which I suppose is true when the world is your dance floor.