I'm a Dance Mom

True confession time: I'm a dance mom.  I fully admit that this is a role I have embraced and grown to love, but in no way did I ever expect that this would a part of my life.  Soccer mom?  Yes.  Baseball mom?  Yes.  Minivan-driving suburban mom?  OK, it wasn't on my list of things I hoped for, but I'm not too terribly surprised that I ended up there.  But dance mom?  Oh hell no.  No way.  No how.  Not in a million years.  But somehow I ended up here.  It's been a journey.  Before you judge me, let me share a little of the journey with you.

When Annalise was young she was painfully shy.  Painfully.  She was the kid who was constantly attached to my leg.  She would spend playdates and parent ed on my lap or clinging to my side or in my arms.  It would take serious coaxing to get her to play.  Even when we were with kids she'd known her entire life, she would cling and worry.  Until she was fine.  It just often took her hours to be fine.  She wanted to go to the birthday party, but she wouldn't participate.  Until the end.  About fifteen minutes before the party was over, she'd start to have a great time.  And then she'd have a fit that it was time to leave.  With a mom who stayed home full time and being the oldest child (and only child, for almost three years), she was almost always with me.  She had yet to start preschool.  She didn't have a lot of opportunities to spend time with other kids without me.  So when a friend suggested she take a dance class, I thought it might be a good idea.

Annalise was almost three.  I was due with Zachary any day.  (And then I was overdue with Zachary. Every time I would walk/waddle down that ramp with Annalise, I'd hear, "Are you still here!?"  I swear I was pregnant with that child for two years.)  But I digress.  Annalise was technically too young for the class, but they made an exception for her.  (Probably not the smartest move they'd ever made.)  Well, she loved the class.  No clinging.  No whining.  No crying.  Just a little girl having a whole lot of fun.  There was a little problem though.  She wasn't dancing.  She jumped and she ran and she giggled.  But there wasn't a lot of dancing coming from that kid.  So we took a break for a while.  We tried a different class at a different studio the following summer.  Egh.  Not impressed with the class.  Annalise didn't really like it and neither did I.

When Annalise was a little over four, we tried again, back at the original studio.  This time, something stuck.  Right from the beginning, Annalise was happy there.  She loved her teacher.  She ran into class with glee.  She didn't need me to hold onto her, hold her hand, peel her arm off my leg.  And going in, she didn't even know any of the kids.  For the first time in her little life, Annalise was at home.  (Home away from home, that is.  At home, the child was funny and silly and talked incessantly, sang and danced and told stories, made jokes.  Away from home: leg clinger.)  She was so happy at dance class we really couldn't believe it.  And so somehow we got suckered into becoming dance parents.  It happened so subtly that we really didn't see it coming.  It kind of snuck up on us and took hold before we even realized it had happened.

Before Annalise's recital, I asked the studio owner what would happen when she ran off the stage in a panic as soon as her music started.  She attempted to assure me that it wouldn't happen; that it almost never happens and it wasn't going to happen with Annalise.  "Uh huh, " I said. "So what are you going to do when she runs off the stage in a panic?"  Again, she tried to convince me it wouldn't happen.  Clearly she didn't know my kid at all.

The day of the recital arrived.  I curled and curled and hairsprayed my four year old daughter's long, straight-as-a-stick hair, knowing it would be completely flat by the time she went on stage.  I put blush and mascara and lipstick on my four year old.  (I could write a whole blog entry on putting makeup on children.  It is one of the weirdest things I've ever done.  I don't even wear makeup myself, so this is bizarro land for me.  And I suck at it.  She's lucky if the makeup is anywhere close to the right spot on her face.)  I dressed Annalise in shiny black tap shoes tied with red grosgrain ribbons, tan tights, and a polyester stars and stripes dress.  Backstage I helped her instructor bobby pin on seven white sailor hats.  They were ready to perform thirty seven seconds worth of "The Good Ship Lollipop."  I went and sat down, ready to jump onto the stage to retrieve my screaming daughter.  It didn't happen.  She came on, in her line of little American flag-clad girls, and did her dance.  Her head was turned, watching her teacher off stage most of the routine; she didn't smile, but she never did look like she was going to make a run for it.

I went to retrieve her from backstage.  A smiling, happy and proud little girl awaited me.  She LOVED it!  She loved it so much she wanted to stay and watch the rest of the show.  We changed her out of her costume and went upstairs to the balcony to watch.  She stood on the edge of the balcony, hanging on the railing, completely enthralled by the show in front of her.  At the end of the show they called all the dancers back on stage for the finale.  Since we didn't know this was going to happen, we'd stayed upstairs, Annalise in a sundress and not her costume.  Once she saw what was happening, and that she could be back on that stage, Annalise had an absolute fit.  She wanted back on that stage so badly that we had to drag her out of there crying.  She was totally hooked.

And that's how it all began.  From there, we continued on.  Annalise took one tap/ballet class a week.  She dabbled in hip hop.  (She'll tell you this was not her strong suit.  It wasn't.)  We kept her at the small studio where she had started.  They were personal and loving and greeted her by name and with a giant hug before every class.  They made her feel special.  And Annalise bloomed.  We watched our shy little girl grow not only in skill and grace but we watched her gain confidence and poise.  She learned how to handle pressure, rise to the occasion and role with the punches.  She learned to deal with last minute changes, recover from mishaps.  And she learned about hard work.  Dancing does not come naturally to her.  She has a hard time remembering choreography.  Her musicality was lacking.  And she gets her flexibility from my dad, which is to say she could barely touch her toes.  As a four year old.  She's a lucky girl; most things come really easily for her: school, soccer, softball, running, most things she tries.  She's never the best at anything, but she's always one of the best, and without much effort at all.  Dance has taught her to have a strong work ethic.  It has been amazing for her and has helped to transform her into the confident child whom I know today.

Over the years Annalise has increased the time she spends in the studio each week.  She was on the company at the small studio where she started when she was four.  We went to dance competitions.  (Yes, dance competitions.  This is another blog post as well.)  We've done quick changes backstage at recitals where she was in six different routines.  And then her studio closed.  We saw it coming.  We weren't surprised, but she was deeply saddened all the same.  So this year we made a move to a much bigger studio.  MUCH bigger!  She is now a small fish in a big pond.  And the kid is swimming!  She's thriving!  And she's happy.  And now her little sister is dancing, too.  And loving it as well.  And that kid loves the stage as much as her sister.  She even has the smiles and facial expressions on stage already.  Oh boy.  I got another one.

So, yeah, I'm a dance mom.  I put mascara on small children.  I own Aqua Net.  I buy booty shorts and foot thongs.  And I've seen the power of dance.  I've seen how being on a stage can bring out the best in someone.  I know the confidence that comes from learning to do the splits on all three sides, mastering a double pirouette, winning a special judges award at a competition.  I will try my best to not be a crazy dance mom, but I will continue to load my minivan up with dancers and bring them to the studio, where they will learn about team work, dedication and hard work.

Freakin' Lice. Twice.

Summer is finally here!  Alleluia!  I feel like I've been waiting for summer to come all school year long.  By the end I was done.  Spent.  Finished.  If you haven't read Jen Hatmaker's blog entry calling herself "The Worst End of School Year Mom Ever," read it now.  And don't be upset if seventeen people haven't forwarded this to you already.  Your friends must think really highly of you.  Myself, well, let's just say lots of people thought I'd enjoy this.  Pretty sure I shouldn't take that as a compliment.

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2013/05/30/worst-end-of-school-year-mom-ever

It is hilarious, timely and so on point.  With the exception of one person (who is clearly organized and energetic), every single person I talked to said, "Oh my God!  That is so me!  I could have written that!"  Yeah, no you couldn't.  You didn't have the energy to write it.  I honestly don't know when Jen mustered up the strength to sit at her computer for that long, attach video and pictures, and write thoughtfully and with that much humor.  I'm pretty sure my sense of humor dropped off somewhere in April.  And I couldn't even gather the strength for Pinterest much less writing something with which thousands of people could relate.  So, yeah, I'm with ya, Jen.  I don't know you at all, but we are sisters in this whole parenting adventure!  And thank you for speaking for all of us who were only capable of head nods and drool in May.

Which leads me to summer.  There was a lot leading up to summer.  Class parties.  Dance recitals.  PTA meetings.  Parent Board meetings.  Dance recitals.  Plays.  Performances.  A parade.  Dance recitals.  Special lunches.  Girl Scout events.  Team parties.  And did I mention the dance recitals?  Keep in mind that they also come with dress rehearsals.  Between the two girls, I spent three plus hours in dress rehearsal and I think seven (or eight?  it's a blur) hours in recitals. I'm sure you've figured out that I wasn't the one dancing, but let me tell you, I was exhausted.  I was literally sore from sitting so much!  Is that even possible?  The dance recitals almost did me in.  Smart people at the dance studio take a huge break before starting up again for the summer.  Brilliant.  It should be enough time for me to forget the pain.

OK, so it's now summer.  All that crap is over for the year, we've started off strong with swimming at friends' houses, having friends over for dinner, sleeping in, watching boatloads of TV and just generally being blobs.  (The kids needed to up their ante on the drool factor.  While I was plenty braindead by the end of the year, they were still kicking.)  So on the night of day four, (DAY FOUR!!!) Zachary complained about being itchy.  Want to know my response?  Yeah, you guessed it:  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  Sure enough, the boy had lice.  Oh.  My.  God.  This is how I get to start my summer?  Are you freakin' kidding me!?

I need to back up.  Over spring break this year, while in Northern California, after having stayed in other people's homes and visiting NINE other families, we discovered we had lice.  When we made the discovery, we were an hour away from our friends' house, where we were staying.  The lovely people at LoveBugs took pity on us, cleaned us up and sent us on our way.  (That sounds simple, but it was about three hours for two people to comb our four heads and hundreds of dollars.)  Meanwhile I was texting, calling and voxing everyone I knew to tell them to be on the lookout.  If you've ever had to make the call after the birthday party to tell everyone your kid threw up that night, has a fever, has pink eye, whatever it is, you get the feeling.  I've made all those calls.  For some reason this one is SO much worse!  Mostly because lice is a major pain in the ass.  You can take care of it yourself, but you probably won't do a very good job, so it will take a long time to get rid of it, and meanwhile you're risking exposure to everyone else around you.  Or you can pay God-sent people who will come to your house and comb you out.  Obviously this is a great option, but it's expensive!  And the vacuuming.  And the laundry.  And the laundry!  Loads and loads and loads of laundry.  My poor washing machine won't even make eye contact with me anymore.  It just groans, opens up and accepts the inevitable.  Like a baby eating squash.  Or me eating squash.  Blech.

Fortunately the day in Northern California when we discovered lice I had spent the day with three beautiful women (and their children) from my childhood.  I'd warned them ahead of time that Zachary suspected he had lice because he'd become paranoid during the car ride down.  (Mind you, I'd checked him before we left the house, found a nit - which I didn't know was a nit because it didn't look like the pictures I saw on the internet - dismissed it  and got in the car to go meet our friends.)  We had a great day, laughed and laughed and miraculously didn't share our bugs!  One of my friends had just finished up chemotherapy for lymphoma, which was found on a routine ultrasound when she was four months pregnant.  (Yes, you read that correctly.  Read it again if you need to.)  And here she was, at the park, with her two gorgeous daughters, the baby having literally saved her life, beautiful and happy and strong.  (This friend is one of the most incredible people I've ever met and if she doesn't become an inspirational speaker or write a book or somehow share herself with the world after all this is over, I will have to drag her around myself.  The way in which she has dealt with cancer, while pregnant and caring for a toddler, is unbelievable.  She has an incredible spirit, positivity, faith and has maintained the same sense of humor that cracked us up as seventh graders!  And now has no evidence of disease!  She really is a walking miracle.)

I send a text to the friends I saw that day, my head in a shower cap, neem oil stinking up the joint, and right away, this friend calls me.  "Lice sucks, " she said.  And you know what, it totally does.  But to hear that from my friend who had just gone through chemotherapy not only validated what I was going through, but also put things into perspective.  We joked about how much quicker it would be to get rid of the lice than cancer and how, comparatively speaking, LoveBugs was a huge bargain compared to the price of chemo.  We were also pretty sure that she wouldn't get lice seeing as she was sporting what she called "the Matt Lauer look."  She was just the person I needed to talk to that day, to talk me down off the ledge, to keep me from feeling too sorry for myself.

In the days since then, I have not stopped itching my head, constantly afraid of the lice coming back.  (Paranoia runs in the family.)  And of course it did.  Clearly someone in Zachary's world has it, as it is very definitely a new case of bugs.  It sucked to have to make those calls.  Again.  It was a bummer of a way to start the summer for sure, but not the end of the world.  I'm always trying to find the reason for things, the "why?" in God's greater plan.  I have to be honest, I'm still searching.  But I have made an amazing connection down here now with Angel from Lice Schmice.  Her website is http://www.liceschmice.net.  And, yes, I am plugging my lice lady!  She is truly an angel!  If you're in Southern California and you suspect those little buggers are in your home, then Angel's your girl.

So maybe the reason is to keep me humble.  Maybe it's a lesson in forgiveness and learning to not place blame.  (I have no idea where the lice is coming from and this is hard for me -- not in that I want to place blame, but in that I want some answers and I want to know that this won't come back into our house.)  Maybe it's a lesson in appreciating every day life, and appreciating the fact that I have my own washing machine and dryer and that I can (sort of) afford to have someone come to my house to deal with this for me.  Maybe it's just a lesson in lice removal.  (I've learned a lot this year!)  Whatever it is, I'm paying attention.  Summer 2013 has now officially begun.  Instead of spending our days doing nothing other than laundry and vacuuming, we are Legoing, playing board games, scootering, reading, swimming.  And gearing up for dancing to start again.

Annalise at the Ballet

Yesterday, my mom and I took Annalise to her first ballet, "Sleeping Beauty." It was quite a treat for her and for the both of us. My mom even said, "I liked that so much more than I thought I would!" It was probably only the second ballet for each of us, we think. Neither of us can actually really remember. As she did when we took her to see "Annie" (her first play) the first time at age three, Annalise sat at the edge of her seat, mesmerized the whole time. She really took it all in, from the dancing to the music to the costumes and the story. We read her the synopsis ahead of time, but it took her a while to understand that the story is really secondary to the dancing. She had somewhat of a running commentary through the whole thing, which was actually pretty funny, but showed how much she really was paying attention to all the little details:
"There's not really a baby in there. I looked! There isn't!"
"Here's where the bad fairy comes in! No, that's not her."
"Here she comes! No, not yet!"
"Is this still his visualizing?"
"The king and queen don't really dance much."
"I'd like to be one of the fairies or the other dancers, but not the lilac fairy or the princess. That's too much work."
"There are 20 dancers in the group."
"Now it's time for the wedding scene!"
And my personal favorite:
"It looks like you can see his butt crack."
We had a lot of fun and I hope we can do it again sometime soon. Because Annalise is a dancer, I think it was great for her to see kind of the end result -- what she is working towards. But I think it is also important for me to expose my kids more to the arts. It's funny, because we are really a family who love art in all forms, but we have never even taken our kids to an art museum. And the only kind of concert Zachary has ever been to involves classic rock. I need to make a promise to myself to do this kind of thing more often.

Ungrateful

Yesterday was one of those days that just grrrr!!!!! It was bad. I know I just wrote a post about keeping perspective, but sometimes you have to bitch a little bit, too. Anyway, we have ants, the water heater isn't heating water, we have tons of bills to pay and not tons of money with which to pay them. I had a million things to do AND my mom (babysitter/lifesaver/person I complain to) left today for three weeks. Anyway, it started off as one of those days. And I was wearing my sweatpants, which actually are Jenn's hand-me-down yoga pants from when she was pregnant and just post-pregnant. And for those of you who saw me every day last year, you know I wore them every other day last year. Now a few more things actually fit in my wardrobe, so I am trying to disguise myself as an adult. Today I am actually wearing a skirt (a nice one that has to be ironed). But yesterday it was sweats and you know how that doesn't really help the whole attitude. So I was already on the edge.

So after we ran a bunch of errands that required Zachary and Juliette to be in the car for almost two hours, we had to pick Annalise up from school, zip over to South Pasadena to buy Annalise both new ballet and tap shoes and then get back to La Canada in time for her dance lesson. (Basically this meant almost another hour in the car for the little ones who, miraculously, weren't complaining at all.) We were half way to the shoe store when I told Annalise that we probably would not have enough time to go home and change before class, so she would just have to wear her dress and leggings that she wore to school. She proceeded to have an enormous fit (with tears) and would not let it go. So of course, I overreacted as well, turned the car around, yelled about how ungrateful she was, drove home, screamed at her to change her clothes, changed Juliette's diaper, threw everyone back in the car, yelled some more, got the shoes (Thankfully I had my checkbook since in all the yelling I had left my wallet at home.), and took her to dance class fifteen minutes late.

I was so upset I didn't know what to do. Jason said he was surprised I had taken her to the class at all and that I had bought the shoes, too. Truthfully, I wouldn't have done either except that I had already paid for the class AND given away her too small shoes.

Sometimes I get so frustrated with my children. I feel like I've done a good job at teaching them to be grateful for what they have. And then they turn around and have this real sense of entitlement. Where does that come from? Do I give them too much? Do I need to start cutting back on things? I really don't feel like I have spoiled them, but maybe I'm just naive. Maybe I have. Is it just an age thing? Are all seven year olds self centered? Do they all really only care about themselves? Annalise has always done a great job of showing empathy. When someone is hurt, she's great at taking care of them. When they're feelings are hurt, she will be the one who plays with them. But she didn't seem to show any care at all that her brother and sister were being carted all around town. She wanted her shoes. She wanted her ballet outfit and she didn't care who had to suffer in the meantime. I don't know what to do to teach them better that they can't always have everything they want and they can't always have things when they want them. I hope these lessons will come with age. I didn't handle the situation well yesterday, but I hope I don't have to handle the same kind of situation too much in the future either. Maybe next time I'll have a cooler head. Maybe nest time the kids will be a little more grateful. We'll see.

So good! So good! So good!

Summer Sundays in La Canada mean music in the park. It's one of my favorite things about living in a small town. Half the town turns out, brings a picnic dinner. The kids run around and dance, do cartwheels and play on the playground. There are tons of dogs, but hardly any barking. It's really quite lovely. Last night featured "Hot August Nights," a Neil Diamond tribute band. We arrived before the band even started and already the park was packed. (Apparently "Neil" brought in the biggest crowd of the summer.) Neil's biggest fan was upfront dancing her little heart out in gray sweats from the first chord. At a certain point, a huge crowd formed in front of the stage (read gazebo). It was a mosh pit La Canada style: Neil Diamond music, a glass of wine in one hand, a child on the other hip and, as my friend Debbie added, a Coach bag back on the blanket. But, as the Evans family joined in for "Sweet Caroline," we had, "the most fun EVER!" as Annalise exclaimed. We even had our own little circle going with Debbie's family for screaming, "So good! So good! So good!" It was a lot of fist-pumping, hip-shaking good times. We may have shot Juliette's hearing, but wow did that kid have fun! It was a great reminder that life really is "So good!"