Do the Locomotion

This morning, our friends CC and Lucy came over to visit. CC is a year or so younger than I am, and Lucy is a year or so younger than Viva. Coincidentally, they are mother and daughter, just like me and Viva. At one point, the girls decided they wanted to dance. Sweet Dub put on a CD for them to dance to, and Viva flung herself about the room with abandon.

"Wow," CC said. "Has Viva always liked to dance?"

"Since she came out of the womb," I said.

I too have always liked to dance, but my love for the dance pales in comparison to the love and sheer effortlessness in the dance when it comes to Sweet William's side of the family. As soon as music starts, they are up and moving. They cannot resist it. Have you ever seen the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? There's a scene where Roger is hiding in the back room of a diner, and the bad guys are looking for him, and Judge Doom starts knocking on walls to the tune of "Shave and a Haircut." "No toon can resist it," he says, and he's right, because even though Roger is shaking with the effort of trying to keep his mouth shut, ultimately he can't stand it, and he bursts through the wall, screaming "TWO BITS!"

This is what happens when music starts anywhere around the Sweet Dub side of the family. And Viva, she is her Daddy's girl.

"She gets that from me," says my mother-in-law, who can shake it with the best of them.

I wish Viva had inherited a love of the nap, but a love of the dance is damn fine. Let's hope she hasn't inherited a love of the booze, or any of the many more complicated traits she could have gotten from either side of the family.