And He Danced

Mark made the last-minute decision to go to the YMCA's Valentine's Dance last night. It was classified as a semi-formal, so of course there was ironing involved. I hate ironing. And I ended up having to iron TWO different shirts, because the first one that he picked out, he decided five minutes before we were going to leave, that he didn't like, and after much argument back and forth (honestly, much of my argument consisted of: "But I IRONED!"), I grudgingly gave in and ironed the other shirt. (which was a thin grey flannel, not what I considered semi-formal, but he was very adamant.) As I was ironing, we agreed that very soon we are going shopping for a couple of shirts that meet both my standards and his for semi-formal. To his credit, when he came home and I asked about how he was dressed, it turned out he was about in the middle for the boys in terms of how dressed up they were, which is a pretty good place to be.

AND HE DANCED! He actually asked a real girl to dance! One not from his school! Who he had never met before! And she said yes! And did I mention he danced!

Her name is Cleo ("her actual name is Cleopatra, but she doesn't like the -Patra part"), and he's not sure which school she goes to, but she wants to be a rock star when she grows up, and have the ends of her hair tipped purple. They danced all of one slow song, and then in one of those group-dance things for a fast one. And Mark is a little smitten, and was dreamily smiley, and VERY insistent that he is going to the next Y dance, because apparently Cleo had to leave the dance early, just as Mark was asking her to dance again, and she asked him if he was going to be at the next one and he said yes. He thinks she's VERY pretty. Which is the most I've ever heard him freely admit about a girl.

His friend Eddie, who danced with Cleo's friend Rebecca, was trying to convince Mark that now they should ask these girls out. Mark, who occasionally shows a little sense (which relieves my mind immensely), argued that they barely knew them, and won't do it. (although he is very much looking forward to the next dance, although he doesn't know when that is.) I think Eddie is a little too eager to jump into the dating scene, and is also a little fickle, because last night he *was* waiting for Katie to show up, but she didn't and then he turned his attention to Rebecca. What's particularly funny is that while Mark was dancing with Cleo, Eddie was dancing with Rebecca right next to them, and Eddie and Rebecca were not talking or anything. After the boys got back together in their little mini-gang, Eddie was shocked: "You TALKED to her! Man, you're pretty good for a beginner!" (Eddie feels all experienced because he had actually danced with a girl before, the aforementioned Katie.)

So there we go. My little boy danced. With an actual girl. Sniff, sniff. mk