Tonight my family had an experience that rivaled any movie or TV show that has melted my heart in the past (I am not saying surpassed because lets face it, nothing is better than "The Wonder Years"). This was seriously one of the most special things to happen in a while and it was really just an everyday occurance. I don't usually speak from the heart (especially to the public in this blog) but I want to remember this night- as mundane and special as it was.
We were eating dinner and Ezra decided he wanted to listen to music after he finished his chicken nuggets. He put in a Chanukah CD to bring some festive cheer to our home (which I didn't mind since I am the biggest scrooge around, I strongly dislike Christmas carols, and that is all I hear anywhere). After he got bored with that CD, he found a promotional CD sent to us from Enfamil when Gila was born. Basically this CD is all propaganda about how music increases the intelligence of the child and their communication, yada yada- but there were many different types of music represented on this CD: Classical, Folk, ethnic, Ragtime, etc.
During one particulary "beaty" song, Ezra got excited and started beating imaginary drums. Next song, he started snapping and got up and jumped around a little (mind you we were all finished dinner by now so this was acceptable behavior for the moment). His excitement became contagious. The next song was a Greek folky dancy kind of song. The only way I can descirbe it is that it would have been a song to dance to during "My Big Fat Greek Dissapointment- I mean Wedding." At that point, Greg, Gila and I were so overwhelmed by Ezra's enthusiasm, that we were up and dancing with him. So here we were, 2 late twenty somethings, a four year old with a lot more rhythm and grace than you would think he should have, and a generally uncoordinated yet happy 2 year old dancing around our kitchen table. We were snapping, we were holding hands, we were crossing over our feet, we were having such a great time.
This song led into a waltz so we partnered up and went into the living room to dance. We switched partners, we twirled around, we stepped on toes (that was mostly me), we laughed some more. To the casual observer (and luckily there were none), we probably looked pretty silly. Yet, we were all so happy to be having such a wonderful time together as a family, it brought tears to my eyes. Having been brought up in a world that we often compare our lives to the pop-culture around us, I could only imagine that this was the point in the movie that became slow motion and the main character (obviously me) took a step back to realize that life was good and everything was going fall into place.
Marriage, raising kids, working a job, keeping a home can be pretty mundane, that's what life is-you have your ups and downs, yet it is nice to be reminded every now and then that within our daily lives, we can live the fairy tale as well.
Posted by peninah at December 10, 2003 10:13 PM