Dance Party, or Na-nee-oh

We've been having some great dance parties lately. For Christmas and her birthday, Meg received two of the Seeds Family Worship CD's. We love them! Each one features a bunch of songs taken straight from Scripture, with great vocalists (mostly) and fun, memorable melodies. (These are very different from the compilations of "Sunday School songs" that some of us grew up with--I love them; I am grateful for them, but you can only take so much of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and "Father Abraham".)

The yellow-covered CD, called "Faith", came from Aunt Lena and has a great version of Ephesians 2:8 on it.

For it is by grace you have been saved
Through faith
And this is not from yourselves
It is the gift of God
It is the gift of God
(Repeat)

And then this chorus, which is sheer, melodic joy:

La-di-da
La-di-da
Oh, not from yourselves
It is the gift of God
It is the gift of God
La-di-da
(Repeat)

Typing the lyrics out just doesn't do it justice; it really is great. Simple, truthful, fun. What more could you ask for in a ditty written for kids?

So Meg looooooves this song. She calls it "Na-nee-oh" (La-di-da) and asks for it about six times a day. Part of this is because, as I mentioned before, we have gotten into the habit of having dance parties in the kitchen when this song plays. Usually, if Dave is home and Matthew's awake, it works like this: Dave holds Meg and Mommy holds Matthew. If Matthew's napping, I dance alone (or sometimes with one of the refrigerator magnets--I have my choice of frog, lion, elephant or lobster). We bop and sway around the kitchen, sometimes in a little clump, sometimes separately. My favorite is when both kids are awake, because then we use certain parts of the song to suddenly lean in so that their faces are just inches from one another's. This makes them both giggle at the same time, which causes my heart to soar.

I so cherish these times that we share as a family--watching my kids smile, watching my husband dance (not a common occurrence), singing aloud one of the greatest truths of my faith. Praying that someday my kids will sing it too--not just with their voices but in their hearts. True, when Meg wants to do the whole routine three, four times in a row, I eventually decline, on the grounds that holding a 15 pound or a 30 pound child and dancing for ten minutes straight is pretty exhausting. But if she comes back for more an hour later, it's hard to say no.

Typically when Meg wants to hear our boppin' song she will ask for it by name or just say, "Sing? Sing?" But the other day I was sitting here, at the computer, and Meg came up and put her hand on my knee. "Beense?" she asked. "Beense?"

"Beans?" I replied.

"Noooo. Beense?"

"'Beense?' Sweetie, I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying."

Meg sighed, took a really exaggerated stance, spun around in a circle and said in a truly condescending, do-I-have-to-spell-it-out-for-you tone of voice: "Beeeeeeeeeeense?"

"Oh!" said I, finally getting it. "Do you want to dance?"

"Okay!" she said brightly, as if it had been my idea in the first place.

So I got up out of the chair, picked up my little girlie, turned on the music and... danced.

La di da, baby.