Ole!

Given the boys' passion for mariache, I found the perfect gift for them. Oh dear--have I forgotten to tell you how much they love Spanish music? It started before they were even born... there would be dance party in my womb whenever we listened to anything with a latin beat. A few months ago, Natebug figured out how to turn on the radio to one of the ubiquitous mariache stations, and dance to the beat. The Nutkin-bubble's tastes run more along R&B lines, but we all love dancing around the house to Shakira.

Anyway, at Wally's I found a little maraca containing a band of little bobbly fruit-shaped dancers, who start playing the first few bars of the Mexican Hat Dance and shouting Bravo! and Ole! whenever.a wuggy shakes the maraca. This is every bit as much a hit as I expected, and Natebug is surprisingly good at it. As soon as the music starts playing, he adjusts his beat accordingly, with admirable acuracy. I do believe that he has as good a sense of rhythm as I did before I came to college and sat under Gary's tutelage. (My, did he have to go to extreme measures with me! I recall whole flute lessons spent marching around the music building, subdividing my footsteps. My walk was irregular, my heartbeat was irregular... and I could not persuade my flute to keep a steady beat. I've come a long way... Now I can play other people's music with only a little bit of rubato, although my own music is still of a very fluid metre. It does my still-arrhythmic heart good to see my little son so rhythmically precocious!)

The bug-a-nate has finally put down his maraca, and is instead shaking his sleeping father's glasses. I'd best go rescue them!