I know you'll say it was inevitable...

Two days ago, as the music played on the radio, Regin took his first solo salsa steps.  It was spontaneous, without any encouragement or anyone to watch and copy.  He's had a couple of "lessons" from Papi along the way.  His first one being when he was probably around 15 - 18 months.  A few weeks ago he started requesting salsa music.  It's the ONLY kind he requests.  And he knows.  If I put on oldies, he will persistently ask for salsa until I change it.  In fact, salsa was the only kind of music he could identify by name until he learned 'cumbia' about a week ago. 

I know you'll say it was inevitable... we're two salsa instructors, most of our friends are salsa dancers, but we hardly ever play salsa music or dance it at home.  We don't even dance it out very often anymore; I think we've been out twice since we moved back from Penang.  But now the requests are daily. And as far as it being in his blood... oh my gosh don't say those words in front of me ever.  It will take everything in my power to hold off the eye-rolling.   We didn't expect him to have any necessary interest in salsa, but then again he's still very little, we're still just awesome to him, and not everything we do is lame yet.

By the way, I think it's pretty impressive that he already gets the difference between salsa and cumbia; it's often not an obvious difference to beginning listeners and I have had to explain it numerous times.

Then, yesterday, another such moment occurred: he created art, on his own, spontaneously, with found materials.  He grabbed a sopping wet plush ball and very carefully and precisely used it to "paint" on our cement steps.  If you're in doubt that that's what he was doing, get this - when I held up the camera and pointed it at him, he stood up and proudly said, "Mama! Coloring!"

That's right.  Our one-time soccer prodigy who is no longer more than mildly interested in balls, is a natural salsa dancer and artist.  I wonder where he gets that from?