Tap, Jazz, and Disco.

It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas on my birthday this year, approximately three weeks after Christmas was already over.  That's because Marley's and Rudy's dance studio held their second annual Holiday Charity Recital in January, which is sort of strange because the holidays are over by then, but sort of great because the holiday stress is gone by then, and the non-holiday calendar is much more open, too.

 Rudy performed in a tap version of "Frosty the Snowman," and by performed, I mean that she completed some half-hearted steps a beat or two after her classmates and the instructor in the wings of the stage, pausing often to look at the audience with a perplexed and accusing face.  She asked me afterwards why everyone was laughing, and she insisted that her class's dance was not funny.  It was actually hilarious in several ways, but I explained to her another part of the truth, which is that sometimes people laugh when they are just so happy, the way that she laughs when she sees Hat Lamb all of a sudden.  She sort of got it, but lately she follows up most quirky or adorable things that make us laugh with a fast, insistent "It's-not-funny!" and we clam up and repeat, "It's not funny," as though we're trying to learn the rules.

Patriots Superfans Emma and Jackson came to the recital to cheer on their cousins while Riley and Owen were cheering on the Hawks at their dad's hockey game.  Emma hung around during the hour-long intermission after Rudy's show and before Marley's, so she got to witness the stage makeup application and hang out for a while backstage with Marley and the other the dancers she knew.

As a "You're so AWESOME!" treat, we gave Rudy a pink LalaOopsy pony. (Yes, LalaOOPsy.  These are spinoffs of her beloved LalaLOOPsies.  I keep up on these things because this is my life.)  After Marley's jazz dance version of Cee-Lo Green's "Run, Run, Rudolph," complete with jazz hands, we gave her the sparkly blue and green beret from Target that she'd been coveting.  She wears it whenever the winter weather is mild enough, and sometime last week she ran off the school bus so gleeful and proud because the light had been reflecting off her sequins all over the inside of the bus, and she had been a human disco ball.  Just imagine, for a moment, having the potential to turn an elementary school bus ride home into a fabulous dance party.  It sounds like a seven-year-old's dream come true.