There's a Place For Me... Somewhere (Not so subtle West Side Story reference)

I used to coop myself up in my room for hours performing various artist solos. I loved to perform so much that sometimes when I was much younger (okay, okay maybe I still do it now...) I would line up my stuffed animals as if they were an audience. I was on a serious Amy Grant kick for a while, then graduated to show tunes after I fell in love with West Side Story. From the time I was probably this little girl's age (in the video below), I was not afraid of performing... alas, I just didn't have the voice -or the talent. I have the dramatic flare *I think* but NO MATTER WHAT I TRY, I cannot sing....or dance really. It didn't stop me from auditioning for school plays, and it still does not stop me from singing and dancing in front of friends and family, I just really suck at it. So, I will never realize the dream of being on stage in the title role as Maria with Tony by my side singing One Hand One Heart, I've given up on that, but, as scary as this seems, I see a lot of this in someone else...

Babygirl loves anything and everything musical - from those little moving shaking stuffed things where you a push a button and they dance and sing (I wish I could stop buying them!) to commercials to the radio to her new MP3 player, she loves them all. AND she loves to dance. I haven't been able to capture the true glory on video just yet, but she doesn't just dance, she constantly looks at you to make sure YOU KNOW she's dancing. She's putting on a show for you. And her newest addition to this routine, is the movement of her mouth along with the words. She doesn't match them up at all, but she knows that mouth movement makes the words come out so she "mock sings". It's hilarious and probably inherited - I'm worried I've taught her this on some level, from dancing and singing Nelly and T-Pain in the car to just rocking out to the Wiggles in my office or when a good commercial comes on TV (NOT the Beyonce one), she sees it all the time.

Sometimes I get so stuck in baby land that I feel overwhelmed by the work and the day in day out of get up, change diapers, get dressed, feed 'em, get 'em out the door, etc that I forget there are so many funny hilarious things that go on right now and even more to come. What kicked off this post this morning is that I found this video and it totally made me flash forward. I'm pretty sure some day in the not-so-distant future, I'll be recording videos just like the one below. It starts kind of slow, but just get to the chorus, the way she closes her eyes in true dramatic fashion like the world is watching her perform. It completely takes me back to my fake microphone and full length mirror in my bedroom and brings me forward to baby girl's performances with real words and dramatic flare. In fact, don't tempt me or I'll go get my video camera out right now and show you the best fake performance of "I Feel Pretty" as portrayed by yours truly....
really I will.