Linda, should my words find you I want you to know that you have been in my thoughts and prayers.

     With the next dance competition being a little over a month away, April, the owner of the dance studio, communicated some unfortunate news.  Her mother, Linda, is very ill.   Linda has been working at the dance studio since it opened.  Linda takes good care of all of the crazy parents, like me, and our little dancing angles.  I fell in love with Linda the moment I met her.   Linda and I are both huge fans of the Twilight movie series, except Linda thinks Edward the vampire is the cutest and I think Jacob is way better looking =).   Linda is an amazing person and has been there for all of us, all the time.  Linda has always kept me in the loop about things and events and takes care of me like she always takes care of many of our kids when we are not able to be at the dance studio. 

 It was a little over a year ago when Linda was diagnosed with stage four cancer and was told she had a short time to live.  I remember the day Linda told me about her cancer; we were all at a dance team yard sale fundraiser.  During a conversation Linda casually said she was dying of cancer.   The way she said it I thought she was joking so I laughed until I noticed another mother who was standing close by had started to tear up and quickly turned her back to me and Linda to cover her face.  I felt horrible and I didn’t know how to handle myself.  I had already put one foot in my mouth and I wanted to avoid putting my other foot in too since I tend to ramble when I am nervous and to get myself into more and more trouble.   My heart stopped and my body froze.  I just wanted to hug her but instead I froze up, not knowing how to respond and afraid to say anything that might be the wrong thing.  I didn’t want to ask her a million a one questions so instead I just listened.  As time went on Linda went though a series of treatments and somehow still managed to come to work.  We were blessed when the time the doctors had given her came and went over a year ago.

Over the last couple of months many of us noticed that Linda has been getting progressively worse. Her body seems to be getting weaker and she has looked more tired; tired of being sick.  I could see in her eyes the pain, both physical and emotional, that she is experiencing.  I would often think about how I could help her or what I could say to her to make her laugh or feel better; but instead I choke and say nothing at all.   I find myself at loss of words when I’m around her and I never built enough courage to tell her how much I respect and adore her.  Some of the people in the dance studio have been helping by walking her dog or doing other little things that help her get through her day. 

I was getting ready to post the blog I had originally written for today when April posted an update on Facebook letting us know that Linda was in hospice care at her home.  I went back and forth about writing about Linda on my Blog; I was not sure if it would be appropriate.  I talked with Charlie about it and his advice was to listen to my heart and to do what felt right. So I did.

Linda, should my words find you I want you to know that you have been in my thoughts and prayers. I know I haven’t known you for a long time, but it didn’t take long for me to see what a wonderful and caring person you are.  I have really enjoyed every moment of getting to know you and am so sorry that you are ill. I would do anything to take your pain away!  You have touched so many lives, both young and old, and all have been blessed by knowing you.  

Now that the first competition of the year has come to an end!

TMC fundraiser Magic performance

Now that the first competition of the year has come to an end and I have some time to relax and have a glass of wine, or two, or three, hmm… who’s counting?  Words cannot describe how good it feels not to be overwhelmed, or worried, about competition hair and rhinestones.  I cannot stop thinking about how unprepared I was for this first competition of the year.   I am so embarrassed, and the worst part is that I really don’t have any good excuses considering that as a child, and for most of my teen years, I danced competitively.   Feeling out of control is one thing, but being out of control is a recipe for disaster; which usually causes me to have a complete melt down.  Ok, I’m being a little dramatic.

 The truth is that this isn’t the first time I haven’t been prepared for one of Leyla’s competitions.   I guess the last time was not bad enough because I must have subconsciously told myself to bring it on this time!  I love overcoming challenges…yea!

 Last year I waited for the last minute to buy lipstick and eye lashes.  So, what is the big deal about buying lipstick or eye lashes at the last minute?  You must be thinking “how hard can that be”?  You have no idea!!  We arrived in Phoenix at around 11 p.m., sound familiar?  Déjà vu.  We stopped at Walgreens to pick up the lipstick and eye lashes with all three kids before we went  to the hotel.  The only problem was that they didn’t carry the color lipstick or the eye lash brand that was required for competition.  Since this was Leyla’s first competition I didn’t want to be that mom.  You know, the mom that couldn’t follow directions; I’m not kidding. Have you ever heard coaches or dance teachers talk about parents when they are not around?  I didn’t want to be that parent in their next conversation.   So instead Charlie, once again, drove to Walgreens, CVS, Sally’s and Target, and none had the lip color or specific brand of eye lashes.  After a very long night of driving around Charlie and I threw in the towel and compromised on something pretty close.  I kept my fingers crossed that there were not going to line up the girls to make sure they had the right lip color and eye lashes on.  One of the mom’s told me that they did that one year.  Who knows if that’s really true but she scared the bejesus out of me.   

Leyla’s next big competition is not until March and is in Albuquerque, NM.   Leyla and I are really hoping to see the Abby Lee dance team from Dance Moms.  Can you imagine??  That gives me plenty of time to regroup and redeem myself to the other dance moms in our group.  I’m off to a good start because I bought two plane tickets and RL booked our room.  It is just going to be me, Leyla, RL, and Jade.  I know I’m going to be in good hands; hopefully she will be a good influence on me and I won’t rub off on her! =)  I already created a check list, and plan on packing Leyla’s bags weeks before competition (might just start packing next weekend!).

The week following the competition the girls returned to class and watched a video for each of their performances.  The video had an audio of the judge’s critique and some complements for each performance.  I love the fact that the girls were able to hear about their strengths and weaknesses though the eyes of the judges.  This particular competition had many different categories in which you could win an award.  Everyone is a winner!!  What kind of nonsense is that?  REALLY???   To the best of my knowledge there is Silver, High Silver, Gold, High Gold, and Platinum.  The Star Systems website  states that  the judges scoring system is: 88 – 90 – “Platinum” 87.99-86 – “High Gold” 85.99-84 – “Gold” 83.99-81 – “High Silver” 80.99-77 -”Silver” Are you confused yet?  What ever happened to just First, Second, Third, and perhaps even Fourth?  Do they really think that by changing numbers and having multiple categories the girls won’t be able to figure out that Silver pretty much means, thanks for participating.  The shining Star team took high gold and second overall in their age category for their Party Girl dance out of 22 dance teams!!  The other dances received at least High Gold and Gold but did not place in the top four overall in their category.  The girls are back to practice and their teachers are cracking down to prepare for the next competition. 

Daning Leyla

Amanda

RL and Jade

Shining Star Dance Team

Competition Day!!

I cannot believe that competition has come and gone, and I’m still alive!!  “Barely”
 
 
Leyla’s first competition of the year was Saturday Jan 21st. I tried very hard to get a head start,  we even left Friday night after our photo shoot at 6pm to make sure we would have enough time on Saturday.  I spent most of the day busy working from home, and between checking emails, I'm busy working hard putting rhinestones on the costumes.    Leyla stayed home from school on Friday; my poor child was exhausted and fell asleep in the car Thursday on the way to school.  I was really worried that she wasn’t getting enough sleep since we live about 40 minute away from the dance studio and don’t get home until almost 9:00 p.m.  at night.  By the time I get the girls ready for bed its 10 p.m.   Charlie and I usually get to bed by 1 a.m.; and I wonder what wrong with my brain.   Leah, our 6 year old, packed her own suit case and Leyla packed her baby sister Alexandra’s suit case.  By the time we left the house it was 9:20 p.m.  and my brain was shot for the night.  I was excited to get on the road and my adrenaline kept me from falling asleep during the trip; well that and a crying two year old baby.  Charlie and I forgot to pack her bottle and she is one stubborn little SWEET ANGLE; she cried the entire way up.  NO, we did not stop to buy a bottle because we had to show her was BOSS.  Clearly it’s wasn’t us!!!!!

My plan was to finish putting rhinestones on Leyla’s hip-hop boots, and jazz costume once we got to the hotel.  No, I still wasn’t done with the rhinestones;   I know that you’re thinking it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to glue rhinestones.  No comment, I’ll take the 5th.  By the time we finished checking in to the hotel it was 11:00 p.m.  already and we were all dying from sleep deprivation.   As we were unpacking I noticed that the bag with rhinestones was missing.  Leyla reminded me that she had handed it to me on the way out.  I honestly had no recollection of what I did with the bag.  Charlie had already left for Wal-Mart to buy the baby a bottle so I called him and had him look for rhinestones.  Wal-Mart did not have the right kind and size but they did have a bottle.  I was about to cry from the stress so I guess I was lucky that I just fell asleep.  Leah and Leyla shared a bed and Charlie and I shared a double bed with Alexandra.  I think I had her foot in every part of my body that night. Or maybe it was Charlie’s foot =/ 

The next morning Charlie went to Michael’s on a rhinestone hunt, Leah played with Alexandra and I tried to do Leyla’s hair.  The competition hair was going to cause me to have a nervous breakdown.    I watched the You tube video 10x and after 45 minutes of close but not-quite I was going to kill someone.  I was sure that Leyla wanted to cry but she was probably too scared to because of what her crazy mom might do.   I decided to move on to something I was good at, makeup.  Charlie was back from Michael’s and took Alexandra and Leah to Breakfast so I started on Leyla’s makeup until I realized I didn’t bring the right foundation color for her skin. I wanted to scream, but instead I decided to start putting on the rhinestones.   I glued all the jazz rhinestones on while Leyla ate the breakfast Charlie brought back, and by the time I was ready to start gluing the rhinestone on the hip hop boots  I noticed that we didn’t have the right color pink. Can someone pinch me because this has to be a bad dream!! 

After breakfast Charlie took Alexandra and Leah for another hunt to look for the right color rhinestones.   Time was not on our side, tick-tock tick -tock, we were running out of time.  Charlie bought a series of four foundation colors that he thought matched Leyla from Walgreens and found pink rhinestones he thought matched a picture on his phone from Michael’s.  Ching, ching goes the ATM.  Leyla and I gathered everything together and ran out the door to meet Charlie in the lobby.  No one was ready. Alexandra has a one-of-a-kind afro and Leah?  Well, we just won’t go there.  I hadn’t brushed my hair or my teeth.   I probably should have had a paper bag over my head. 

I called RL because I needed to have someone to come to my rescue and RL has been a great friend to me. We car pool together during the week and she always makes comments about how grateful she is for my help.  Little does she know how unbelievably blessed I am to have her and her beautiful daughter Jade in my life.  RL shared with me how she was also having trouble with the competition hair, and not that I wanted her to have a hard time, it was nice to hear that it just wasn’t me. When I told her about the rhinestones she eased my pain by assuring that no one would be able to tell from far away. Slowly I started to feel that I could breathe again.

We arrived about 90 minutes early to the competition and found the dressing room.   Another mom and her daughter did Leyla’s hair.  I have to tell you that I am so very blessed, the moms were unbelievable.   Everyone came together to help each other.  I’m still in shock by how smooth they were!!  The dressing room was very small we were packed in there like sardines, all I kept thinking was “Crud, I didn’t brush my teeth!”  There were suitcases everywhere, by the toilet and in the shower.  I was not impressed with how the competition was being run.  Every dancer had to pay $70 and up for each routine they competed in.  Leyla was in 5 dances, $ 350 dollars, and that’s nothing compared to some of the other dancers in the dance studio.  On top of the dancers being packed backstage, there were not even enough seats for every one to watch.  The parents, friends, and family were lined up outside waiting for a seat to become available.  Absolutely ridiculous!!  Not only were there lines but eventually they cleared the theaters and only let people in just as the dance was starting.   The moms missed the start of one of the dances because they would not let us in on time and there were plenty of extra seats.  Leyla had four dances separated by three dances in between. One of the people working in the theater tried to have Charlie, Alexandra, and my pregnant friend leave to free seats. At least until Charlie told her there was no way he was going to constantly wake up his sleeping 2 year old just to go and stand back in line and that it was not very empathetic to do the same to someone that was 8 months pregnant.  The lady grumbled but left them alone after that.

When it was time for Lelya’s team, Shining Star, to perform I’m happy to say that all the rhinestone were on and looked great.  The first dance to go on stage was called “Party Girls,” the girls rocked it!!  They were absolutely amazing.  After each dance we ran backstage to help change the girls into the next costume.  I was a complete mess (blaming little feet and no sleep) and was amazed when every mom on our team jumped in to help!! Leyla misplaced one of her tights and BM reached into her bag and gave Leyla an extra pair.  I could give another dozen examples of a helping hand. WOW!!!  The moms supported each other, took care of all the girls together and were not just a team of mom’s but a force of nature!  They ROCKED it!!

April, the dance teacher, texted a mom to tell the girls that they did great on “Party Girls.”  You could feel the energy in the room when the girls got the message.  If I could freeze time I would freeze moments like this and then set them to aside to look at whenever anything bad happens to remind us that the smiles and excitement on the girl’s faces makes it all worth it!!  I was very impressed with most of the numbers and I enjoyed watching them all dance more than anything in the world.  I’m so proud of Leyla.  That night, while watching Leyla dance on stage, I could feel the love and passion she has for dancing.

Winners!!

Dance Team!

         Yesterday started on good note.  Leyla’s black jazz shoes came in and they fit her!!   It is the little things in life that make me happy.  I had a smile from ear to ear on my way to work while I was jamming out to music in my car.  As if my day couldn’t get any better I felt like I won the lottery when I also found out that the girls were not going to have to wear their pony tail extension piece for this competition.   Oh yeah!!   The hair issue is now a concern in the past, or so I thought.  I was talking to RL, one of the dance moms, and she bought up that there is a new competition hair style.  I immediately thought “Oh boy I know this day seem too good to be true.” Every year April chooses a new hair style for all the girls to wear to competition.     Last year the competition hair style was a simple front tweet and a low pony.  It may have been simple but I never did figure out that hair style; lucky for Leyla one of the older girls on the dance team came to my rescue and did it for me.  Leyla had mentioned the new competition hair style over the phone the other night and was very excited about it.  I couldn’t help but tune her out when she used the words braid, twisting and bun in one sentence (actually it is braid, right twist, bun, then a peacock thing) .  RL’s description of the new competition hair style put a stormy rain cloud on my sunny day. 

When Leyla and I arrived at the studio last night April was going to give a demonstration on how to do the hair style.  I some how missed the email that went out with a YouTube Video tutorial on how to style the competition du.  I didn’t realize that we were going to actually have to do the competition hair on our own child that night. “Opps” I had to ask another mother for bobby pins and hair ties.  My first attempt doing Leyla’s hair failed miserably. It wasn’t until after my 2^nd attempt also failed that I started to panic a little as I looked around the room at the other moms and they were not having nearly as much of a problem.  “What the hell was wrong with me??”  When I was a child on a dance team we didn’t have competition hair styles.  My mom would put my head on ironing broad and iron my hair straight.  Then she would roll my hair in rollers, not the soft rollers but the big hard rollers, and send me to bed.  I would complain that I couldn’t sleep with rollers in my hair and her response was alsways “Beauty knows no pain.”    Ask me if it was worth the pain??  Yes, yes it was!!   I could feel Leyla’s frustration with me; which made things worse.  She gave me that look, you know that daughter to mother look that screams out “Really, Really mom?”  If she only knew that when I was a child and I practiced hairstyles on my Barbie they all ended with bad hair cuts that some may consider to be um... bald .  Don't ask.  I didn’t think it was good time to share that little story with Leyla…I’ll just wait until after the competition...or until she is 16.    Sasha’s mother must have felt sorry for me because she ended up doing Leyla’s hair, and I have to admit, that when the hair is done right it’s beautiful!!  

             
                Braid, twist right, bun, then peacock thingy

P.S . NO, I HAVE NOT FINISHED THE RHINESTONES!!!!! But my absolutely wonderful boyfriend set everything for me on a craft table.....but he forgot to setup more than one chair.

P.P.S. The names of people referenced in this Blog have been changed to protect the innocent, the not so innocent, and the hapless bystanders. = )

                                                       

Dancing Leyla

                Dancing Sasha

Four more days left until Leyla's dance competition.

                                                                         

I woke up this morning to a confirmation email that Leyla’s shoes were on their way! My poor child inherited my big feet and we could not find a place in Tucson who had her size jazz shoes in stock. I really hope they get here by Friday. While getting ready for work today I couldn't help but notice that all of Leyla’s costumes where hanging over chairs waiting to be finished being blinged out with Rhinestones. I came to the realization that they were not going to do it themselves, but I just cannot bring myself to do it!! Maybe it has to do with the lack of sleep Charlie and I have been getting thanks to Leyla's fussy two year old sister.

Today Leyla‘s is at her dad's house and it is his turn to take her to dance; which sucks for him because he has to bring her to class with a ponytail piece in her hair. For anyone who has no idea what I’m talking about it’s a long ponytail hair extension. I’m sure her dad has no idea how to put it on. Who am I kidding? I have no idea how to put it on. Ha Ha poor kid!  Should I meet him at the dance studio??  Then she can see dumb and dumber trying to put the hair piece on her.  All the girls on the dance team have beautiful hair. Why do we need to make things more complicated?  Did I mention that April, the dance teacher/owner, will make the parents of any child whose hair piece falls out do 100 V-ups? With all the competitions and performances coming up that may be the only form on exercise I get all year!! The girls on the dance team received their matching suitcases, jumpsuits, and sport bags with their names on them! I absolutely love them!!  I wish I could order a set for myself.  I can't wait for them to walk into a room together; if that doesn't intimidate their competition then I don't know what will!! =)

P.S.  Just as I was posting this update I received a call from my wonderful little girl....the dance shoes have to be blinged out too!  Plus, she lost a black leotard so now I have to pick one up...ching ching goes the ATM!!! Should I make her pay for her leotard???

Five more days before Leyla‘s first dance competition of the New Year !

Shining Star Dance Group

Dancing Leyla

Ok, never in a million years did I think I would ever Blog!! I changed my mind when my daughter started to compete competitively in dance. This Blog is for all the performing art parents or the parents who are thinking about putting their child in a competitive group. 




Five more days before Leyla‘s first dance competition of the New Year and I cannot believe how nervous I am for her.   This is her first year that she will compete in eight dance numbers.  Her dance team is called Shining Star and they practice their dances for over 15 hours a week!   How these kids do dance and school and do not drop from exhaustion amazes me.  This weekend’s competition is in Phoenix. They will have five dances in the competition.  All of the Shining Star group numbers are back to back with a 10 minutes break in between to change costumes.  This is going to be interesting!  Did I mention that I had to put in and take out a pony hair piece between dances?  I’m having anxiety attack just thinking about it!! =D.  I have been running around like crazy trying to get ready for this weekend.  You wouldn’t believe all the things you need to do to prepare for a competition.   Just call me an ATM because I haven’t stop spending money since she started dancing.  Last week I bought black jazz shoes, tan Jazz shoes, dance paws, boots, body glitter spray, tan footless tights, tan footed tights, fishnet stockings, fake eye lashes, Rhinestone chokers, Rhinestone hair ties, and the list goes on and on. 

For the first time in my life I attended my very first “Dance Mom’s Rhinestone Party.”   Yes, I said Rhinestone party!!  A Rhinestone party is when a group of mom’s getting together to glue different size Rhinestones to costumes.  As if the costume didn’t have enough bling to begin with.  Apparently, judges score on how have much the costume shines and sparkles.  Each Rhinestone has to be glued perfectly in the right spot; exactly half inch away from each other.  Each mother has a picture that maps out where each Rhinestone goes.  Do you know how hard that is for someone, like me, who has ADHD?  I did find that after a drink or two gluing Rhinestones is kind of fun. 

Another mother and I are new to this dance mom group this year.  Dance teams are divided by age and skill level.  The group of girls that Leyla dances with has been together since they were 5 years old and are incredible dancers.  I was scared to death when I found out Leyla was going to be on this team.  The kids have been great with accepting new team members on the team.   As weird as this may sound, and for as much as I go on about 15 hours of dance, travel, and feeling like an ATM sometimes,  I have to admit that I love every moment!!    Let the countdown began to this weekend competition!



On stage