He came to dance dance dance........

Yesterday, Jonah was trying on dress clothes.  "Why are we trying on clothes?" he asks Rachel.  "Because we're going to a wedding tonight," she replies.  This lead's Jonah to a series of questions:

• Will there be a swimming pool? (no)
• Will there be a ping pong table? (no)
• Will Carley be there? (no - Carley is his second cousin from Wisconsin)
• Will they play Dynamite? (Jonah's favorite song)

These are things our son associates with weddings.  All of these things happened at his Aunt Colleen's wedding last year.  The hotel we stayed at had pool and ping pong, and Carley was/is his bestest friend in the whole world.  Rachel, had to tell him that sadly, probably none of these things would be happening last night, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that Joanh was most likely going to be very difficult to control at the wedding.

We drove up to the wedding (for a former co-worker of mine), and Jonah and Jocie both slept in the car on the way up, which was nice.  We got to the wedding, and instantly Jonah has made a friend in Genevieve, a cute little girl who said more words in the three hours we were there than I think I've said in my entire life.  They got along great, holding hands as we went to take our seats, and insisting that they sit next to each other during the ceremony.  So far, so good. 

The ceremony was simple, brief, and well done, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Joy - the bride - looked fantastic (that's a requirement of wedding recaps, to mention how great the bride looked, but that doesn't make it an less true) and then we were on to the reception.  Jonah didn't understand why he couldn't sit with Genevieve (apparently the idea of assigned seating doesn't register with him) and his dinner of two dinner rolls and fresh cut pineapple barely held his attention.  Jonah and I excused ourselves from the reception hall to run around in the lobby with Genevieve and Dailey, the son of a friend who has a penchant for smiling and sprinting towards the nearest open door. 

As the kids are playing "ring around the rosy" I hear the bride and groom starting their first dance.  I tempted Jonah with the promise of cake to come.  A few more dances with the father of the bride and the mother of the groom, and then the DJ says "And now Joy and Jonathan would like to invite all their friends and family to the dance floor to join them" over the beats of a faintly familiar song.....Taio Cruz's "Dynamite"

You've never seen a three year old so happy.  Jonah's eyes lit up, and he's practically dragging me to the dance floor.  "C'mon Dad, it's DYNAMITE!"  From there the night is a blur of dance circles around Jonah, bridesmaids and even the bride grabbing his hand to dance with him, and Jonah doing a combination of booty shakes, breakdancing moves, and "throwing his hands up in air."  At some point, he ended up with glitter on his forehead - glitter that is still there this morning.  The most common question asked of me last night was "did you teach him these moves?"  I reluctantly had to say no, and admit that my son is a better dancer at 3 than his father is at 32 - or at any point in his life for that matter.  I sheepishly said no and muttered something about his daycare provider teaching hip hop dance, but by that time, whomever had asked the question was already back to dancing with Jonah. 

We ended up leaving at around 10:45, over the protests of "Dad, just one more song!  Just one more song then I promise we can go!  PLEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEE???" Five minutes down the road, Jonah asked one more question before falling asleep:  "Dad, can we go to that wedding again tomorrow?"

Rachel and I had a conversation about how we had a party monster on our hands, and nervously shook our heads as we pictured what life is going to be like 13 years down the road when we're trying to rein this kid in.