It's hot. It's humid. It's July. Naturally, I'm listening to "The Nutcracker".

India, aka "Clara", is now officially ballet obsessed. So we put on a little Tchaikovsky and boogie down. Now, I enjoy classical music so it's not that I mind the Tchaikovsky, per se, it's more the frequency of the request (she only wants "Clara" music) combined with the seasonal mismatch that has me a bit underwhelmed. That and the "Watch this!" that's repeated every 2.5 seconds (Mom and Dad, you're thinking "karma"). I complain, but it truly is very sweet...particularly with Kate the sister stalker following right behind. This photo is of India and her Baby Karen wearing matching fairy princess costumes from Aunt Katie, Uncle Jim and Makey for her birthday. This outfit is, for India, the penultimate in ballerinaness and she would wear it all day every day if I let her.

After dinner we broke away from the Nutcracker and had a dance-off that involved alternating between bluegrass and disco/funk. I'm guessing that this wretched combination would disturb musicians on both sides of the fence but it fed the girls' music tastes. So we alternated between Del McCoury and Dee-Lite, the Diddybops and the Commodores. As you can see, Kate enjoyed herself enough that she was compelled to strip, while India added copious amounts of clothing in a StevieNicks-like fashion. All in all it was so much fun that Tracy and I had a hard time turning off the music so the girls could settle down before bedtime!

Unrelated to music, but funny: today in the car India randomly commented "Mommy, sometimes peoples don't have heads". I couldn't help it, I just cracked up! I laughed so hard that I glanced in the rear-view mirror to determine if I had hurt her feelings...and saw Kate coated in melted chocolate and picking her nose for all she was worth. Sometimes I just have to wonder about their intellect, but they are certainly very cute...