Dance performance.

Turner's music and dance class came to a close yesterday. He and seven little girls danced their stuff to "Deck the Halls." The morning of the performance I was rushing him out of bed, into the bathroom, and into the shower. He was still half asleep, but he stopped me in the middle of the bathroom after I turned on his water. "Mom!" all sudden-like. "Yes." "Wait a second." I waited. "I need to busted out this move." He took his foot, does some forward and then backward motion that included a tap. He clapped. Then he looked at me and told me the official name of this move, which I don't remember. He took his socks off and got into the shower. "So is that one of the moves your making today in your performance?" "Oh I can't tell youuuuuu." He sing songed his words to me. They have been practicing for the performance since Halloween. We have not heard a SINGLE detail about it from Turner. He has been quite close-lipped. His "busted out" move was my first glimpse of what was to come.

The performance was great, of course. When it was Turner's time to step onto stage he leapt two-footed onto the stage, then laughed out loud as the audience took note.

Knee. Tap. Heal. Tap. Clap.

The dance team.

View the performance on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwOpmQ6La90

Soccer rules.

Turner and I are playing soccer on the sidewalk out front. He wanted us to be on different teams. I was UK and he was UofL (we watched UK play IU earlier in the day, and Turner was convinced the “blue boys” were playing UofL). I threw the ball ‘in’ and we chased it around a bit. He made his way toward the goal. I jumped around in front of it trying to look authentic.
"Mom stop that."
"Stop what?"
"Stop jumping around like that. I can’t see the goal."
"That is the point, right? I am not on your team so I am suppose to make it difficult for you to get a goal."
"Yeah but you are on my team sometimes too. OK."
He made the goal. I cheered. Since he got the goal, then he gets to throw the ball in this time. His rules. He threw it in. I chased him down the walk and tried to do defensive gestures. Turner said I’m making him nervous and then he kicked the ball into the flowers. I got it and then kicked it toward the goal. He ran all the way there and blocked my first attempt. Then I get a goal.
"Mom!"
"Yeah? I try to high five him."
"You got a goal."
"Yeah. For our team, yes?"
"Yeah but you aren’t the one on the team that gets the goals. We are the kind of team where you try to get the ball from me, but I always hit the goals."
"Hmmm. Well that doesn’t sound like much fun. I don’t think I want to play that kind of soccer."
"Oh okay. You be on your own team, but don’t make too many goals." Surely that couldn't be a real danger.
He threw it in again. Turner got the goal. He threw it in again and I got a goal.
"Mom!"
"Yes?"
"That doesn’t count as a goal."
"Oh really, why?"
"Because the goal moved a little." And, well, the side of the goal did move a bit. I did not put the stakes into the dirt (much too hard), so it moved with each goal.
"So what does that mean? If the goal moves, I don’t get credit for it."
"Yep." There was a short pause, then he turned on his heals to face me, “and it means that your point goes to the other team. To me.”
"So I just got a point for you?"
"Yes."
"Okay. I think I understand. But, you know that when you play real soccer, like on a league, that you’ll have to go by one set of rules. And they won’t be the rules that you make up."
"I know. But in the real soccer the goals don’t move. So it won’t matter."
True.