song and dance

Sarah loves her ballet class. Even before she started taking it though, she and Natalie have had an interest in ballet. So far, we've attended performances of The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, and a Nativity ballet. Welll, we've attended Sarah's performances too, of course, but you know what I mean. 

Nelson and I sometimes joke that male ballet dancers are very secure in their manhood (they better be, because in some of those costumes, their manhood is pretty much on display for all to see). But they seriously are some strong dudes, lifting ballerinas on one arm while doing crazy arm flourishs with the other and never missing a step in their fancy footwork. It's really some impressive stuff.

A young man we know who plays football was informed by his coach that ballet would do wonders for his game. Upon hearing this, Sarah immediately quipped, "That's why male ballet dancers are so strong! They're all football players!" 

###

Natalie will never simply say the name of a TV show she's watching or asking to watch. She sings the title in tune with the show's theme song. 

###

Tying together singing and ballet--Sarah's class on Tuesday was practicing a new dance. This dance was set to Frozen's "Let It Go." 

The girls have watched Frozen approximately 57 times (or so it seems). And they sing "Let It Go" a lot. 

A lot a lot. 

Baby E can also sing a snippet of "Let It Go." The words aren't quite clear (definitely baby talk), but the tune comes through. He bellows "Let it go!" at random points throughout the day (pretty much on pitch, no less). 

Ordinarily Natalie, Baby E, and I hang out in the playroom of the center where Sarah has ballet class. But when the first strains of "Let It Go" began to play, both children immediately perked up. They knew that song! They went out to where the girls were dancing. 

Natalie tried to sing along and grew very frustrated when the teacher kept stopping the CD to teach new steps or go over the previous part again (the nerve, right?). 

Finally the students had enough of the routine down that the song could play out a bit more. It got to the chorus and not only does Baby E sing along at the top of his lungs, he starts twirling with the dancers.

It was completely hilarious and utterly adorable. 

(The song was playing at Wal-Mart last night too. I swear it's omnipresent.) 

###

Back before we'd ever seen Frozen but when all those parody versions of "Let It Go" were all over the interwebs, I stumbled across a really funny one by Arthur Darvill. For those not in the know, he played companion Rory Williams on Doctor Who. He sang imploringly to Whovians, "Let it go, let it go, I'm not on Doctor Who anymore..." It was brilliant, the lyrics spot-on.

But Darvill messed up partway through and said something he shouldn't have. Since the girls weren't familiar with the song yet, when Natalie tried to sing it she included Darvill's bit of language (she thought it was just part of the song). I told her that he shouldn't have said that and she shouldn't either. 

She didn't quite get what I meant. She asked, in all sincerity, if Darvill should have sung "Let it come" instead.