the stress of having a copycat

I taught Emma how to dance yesterday. Not that I'm the best teacher...far from it. I have about as many moves as a rocking chair--a simple back-and-forth motion is pretty much all I can do. But a two-year-old can't really notice extremely poor skillz in the dancing department. The only thing she can see is that I'm doing things she's never seen before and boy, would she like to try them out! So I improvised. For "Enter Sandman" (Metallica), we tried head-banging, which looked more like vigorous nodding. For "Sweet Home Alabama" (Lynyrd Skynyrd) we did a country two-step (or at least, my version of one). For "About a Girl" (Nirvana), we did a dance reminiscent of the zombies from Michael Jackson's Thriller video, complete with grunts, groans, and strange clawing motions with our hands. For "Dream On" (Aerosmith), we stole a hairbrush from the bathroom and did our best job of lip-synching like '70s rockers. Altogether, our rock-out session was awesome.

But at the same time, the whole incident stirred up various concerns for me. I never grew up with little kids around; my youngest sibling was born when I was six, so my experience with the toddler age group is rather limited. And it never really struck me until yesterday how much little kids like to imitate us. Every move I made (or attempted to make) was immediately copied by Emma, in her own two-year-old version of the move. And I mean every single move. If I got down on my knees to look her in the eye, she would get on her knees too. If I brushed my hair out of my face, her little hand would sweep her own blonde curls behind her ears. And that scares me. These little things, these almost mindless movements are observed and then imitated. And the same goes with words. Even though her enunciation was somewhat undecipherable, I could still hear echoes of my own words as she sang along with the music. I spent less than an hour with Emma, and already she was doing exactly as I did. The influence I had on her is a scary thing. It could be good, too, if I use it right. But right now, all I hear is cheesy voice of Spiderman's uncle ringing in my ears: "With great power comes great responsibility." Such power is a frightening thing, to me. But I'm glad I got a rough estimate as to how much I seem to have. It was quite the dance lesson.