Dance Mom

First of all can I just say it is much easier to be a soccer mom than it is to be a dance mom!!! I swear I haven't been this stressed out since I was working! Not only has dance been far more expensive than soccer but it is a ton more work and you better be a domestic diva or you are out of luck!

We joined dance last January and thought we were just signing up for some fun. Little did we know this is a very professional studio with an amazing reputation. By March we learned that the girls could be in a dance recital the first weekend in August. We thought it would be so cute. At that point it was only Aly in dance but KK had been begging to go. In April we let KK give it a try. I wasn't sure she was quite ready but the dance instructor said she would be fine.

Once the summer started things got really serious, really quick! We started having extra practices and rehearsals. The girls were already getting tired. Mom's were expected to volunteer two times out of five events but I got signed up for four times. I am guessing because they felt like KK needed her mom as a backstage mom!

I volunteered at the two practice rehearsals. I was supposed to have another mom to help me with the 8 girls but both times no one was on the schedule and the schedule was not being monitored. You know both of the classes have more than enough parents to volunteer but so many moms are just not stepping up to the plate. This has been so frustrating for me. The studio isn't even putting pressure on the moms that aren't volunteering. You know what's worse, they are asking the mom's that are already committed to two times volunteering, to pick up the slack and volunteer an extra day. Seriously, I feel bad for some of those mom's that are really frustrated with all the extra volunteering, and what the heck, how can the mom's that haven't even volunteered not feel guilty? Seriously some people I just don't get!

Now I am coming to the part of all the extra work. First of all we need two costumes. One for the ballet dance and one for the tap dance. Our fist dance is Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The girls will be wearing sparkly Dorothy dresses. They will have their hair in low pig tails with Dorothy bows. Do you know what the worst part is? They have to have red Dorothy slippers. The studio picked out these totally cheesy covers that go over the ballet slipper. You guessed it, because they are made so poorly they won't even stay on. So now we are told to either hot glue gun them on our ballet slippers or tack them on! I chose to tack them on in hopes that I can salvage the slippers after the recital. If I hot glue gunned them on I would never be able to take them off.

Our second costume is a sparkly blue sailor outfit for the tap dance routine to Grand Ole Flag. On this costume we need to tack the waist ribbon down, tack the sailor collar down, and try to figure out how to get all the wrinkles out of the tulle!

Now comes the hard part the day of the show. Our show is an hour and 15 minute drive away! They want our girls to come dressed in their tights, with their make up and hair done. Seriously, my four year old would not keep her hair in pig tails during that drive and even if she did, it would be a huge mess by the time we got there. So I am going to break the rules and wait until we get there to do everything. We are supposed to be there 45 minutes early and our dance isn't until number 6. So in 45 minutes time before the show even begins I am pretty confident I can get both girls ready. KK doesn't even want to wear make up and honestly, we don't even know if she is going to put on her costume and dance. At this point she doesn't want to. So I will focus on Aly first and do KK second. That way KK can see all the other girls getting all fancy and it will give her time to consider it. Plus she finds the costumes really itchy so the less time she has to wear it the better.

Man soccer was far less work! All I had to do was bring snack twice! Oh well, hopefully the girls will wow me on stage and it will make it all worth it!