So You Think You Can Dance

Sunday morning, Erin informed me that we needed to get some videos of black kids dancing. I had no earthly clue what she was talking about, but we proceeded to have a discussion about it, and by the end, I was in full agreement.

Last week we were given nearly-free tickets to see Disney On Ice at Conseco Fieldhouse. Grant nearly has a heart attack at the sight of any of the Disney princesses, so we knew that seeing them skate around in a darkened room full of seductive music would pretty much put him over the edge. So we packed up the van and made our way to the 5pm show.

But when we arrived at 5pm, we were informed that Erin's careful fact checking (think "IRS calculation checker" rather than "George Bush grammar checker") had failed to note that there was no 5pm show on Saturdays, only a 3pm and a 7pm. Having already missed the 3pm by an hour, we made our way to the Circle Centre Mall to kill some time, followed a dinner at Rock Bottom.

Rock Bottom was uncharacteristically awful. It was one of those meals where you were left thinking, "Did they hear Gracie shriek and think, 'We can outlast them.'?" The fries were soggy, the beer was slow, the server screwed up our order. It was bad. But we tried to rectify the situation by stopping by Dunkin' Donuts for a donut on the way back to the show, only to discover that the donuts you get five minutes prior to closing can also be used as flint.

Disney On Ice turned out to be a lovely experience. The kids were entranced. As each new song started with new characters heading out onto the ice, Grant would excitedly turn around and announce the name of each person. It was really adorable. Erin and I were both tearing up at the pure excitement he was experiencing. I'd highly recommend a trip to one of these shows if you can get cheap tickets, as both of the kids really loved it, despite it being a little late for them.

At intermission, Grant hopped up to make friends with the row behind us while I investigated the availability of alcohol at a family show. As it turned out, there was a very nice black family with three kids seated directly behind us, one of which was a little boy a couple of years older than Grant.

Grant is a desperately social creature, so he immediately began befriending the little boy. Grant genuinely tries to converse with everyone he meets, but occasionally he doesn't have the realization that not everyone is immediately interested in a discussion regarding the tree on his shirt or who bought him his pants.

In this case, Grant first tried "I know my numbers!!" as a conversation starter. He then began demonstrating his skills by calling out the numbers on everyone's seat. The four year old behind us was unimpressed, but Grant was undeterred. At this point, he brought out the dance.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, Grant has developed a dance over the past few weeks where he begins by knocking his knees together ala Elvis and ends by crossing his hands back and forth between his knees ala the Charleston. In other words, you'd be more likely to see his dance done in blackface than by a black kid.

Eventually he made friends with the family behind us, but it definitely left us a little shaken. We want Grant to feel like he fits in with everyone, but if he keeps pulling that dance out in public, he's going to end up looking more like Carlton than the Fresh Prince.

So this leads us back to Erin's request to find videos of black kids dancing. And we're thinking more James Brown than Gregory Hines, to be honest. Perhaps if we can introduce Grant to some dancers better than Erin and myself, he'll be more impressive when he decides to bust a move.