Siena has a toy (ok, more than one) that plays catchy music when activated. This one in particular has a funnel at the top that admits balls of a certain size and bottoms out with a button, whereby falling balls will strike the button and initiate said catchy music. The ball then rolls out through a hole (if we’re lucky) on the side to be reclaimed in order to start the toy cycle-of-life anew. (Nevermind for now that Siena has learned to circumvent the entire process by sticking her little arm, cross section of which is less than diameter of the ball, into the exit chute and pressing the button with her fingers to play the music.)

Recently, while watching Siena sitting on the floor playing with this toy, I saw her drop the ball in to start the music, and then she started bobbing up and down; like little vertical sitting crunches. I thought to myself, “That’s odd.” I took a ball and dropped it in after the music stopped, and when it started back up, she bobbed up and down again.

Holy cow she’s dancing!

I jumped to the CD player, cued up some Santana, grabbed Siena and stood her up, and there we are, dancing away. For her, that means mostly just bobbing up and down, whether sitting or standing, but still, she’s reacting to music as a different kind of aural cue compared to the other things she hears. And did she love it!

How cool is that.