When is it too much of a good thing? I know my daughter, Julia, could be addicted to so many bad things that we have no right to complain that she’s addicted to something good. She’s 3 years, 5 months. And right now only one thing in the world matters. The Nutcracker.
See, about four or five months ago, she saw my wife watching the Nutcracker Ballet on TV. Since then, obsessed! She has two Nutcracker DVDs, a Nutcracker CD, my wife’s wooden Nutcracker doll, a soft, plush Nutcracker doll we bought her so she wouldn’t bonk Benjamin on the head with her wooden one, and of course white ballet slippers and a purple tu-tu. Not a day or night passes when she is not dancing in her room to her Nutcracker CD, by herself or with one of us watching her. She’ll wake up in the morning and want the music over breakfast and want it at night with dinner. Yes, it’s downloaded on to my iPod and has annoyingly popped up on more than one occasion during my jogs.
Lately, it’s becoming hysterical as she will walk out of her room in only her white undershirt and tu-tu and we will ask what happened to her sweater.
“I took it off, I have to dress like Clara,” she says, referring to the star attraction in the Nutcracker who does indeed dress in a white leotard that looks like a tank top undershirt.
So we just let her be. As I said, it could be worse. The music’s beautiful. But now I have Tchaikovsky in my head at all hours? My only hope is that Coldplay will write a ballet I can give her soon.