I Survived Dance Recital Pictures

I would like to begin this post by saying I raised two sons, boys, non-females. I raised them from infancy to adulthood, successfully.

I navigated the roads of parenting, surviving everything from the terrible twos and potty training, bad grades and bullies, teenage attitudes, driving, dating, drinking, and broken hearts (and not necessarily in that order).

So you would think that with that much experience under my belt, a little thing like dance recital picture day would be no big deal.

Well you would be wrong, if you thought that.


First off, I'm not a girly girl. I can't do fancy hair, I don't accessorize well, I didn't do ballet or tap or jazz or any such thing as a little girl, nor did I attend school dances that required extravagant formal gowns. So I am immediately at a disadvantage.


Secondly, when your daughter has dance recital pictures, it's serious business. You have to go to a meeting where they tell you what to wear, and how to wear it.  You gotta know how to fix the hair, where to put the bow, what color stockings you need, the fancy socks . . .

O.M.G.

the list goes on and on.

But you know what? I rallied.

I figured out how to put my daughter's braided and beaded hair into a bun, expertly crafting a black sock around all that hair in such a way that it looked exactly like a black bun on the top of her cute little head.

Read that again. (Go ahead, I'll wait. . .)

Did you catch that? I used a

CUT
OFF
SOCK

and made it look like a bun.

For.Real.

AND I expertly fashioned the other daughter's giant fro into a tight-ish bun on the top of her head.

I somehow managed to get my twinderellas in car seats amidst giant glittery tutus and exclamations of grand protest.

And we somehow arrived without anyone falling down and tearing their TWELVE DOLLAR stockings or SIXTY-FIVE DOLLAR costumes (for the love).


When we got out of the car, I must confess. I was nervous.  So nervous in fact, that I gave myself a little pep talk.

"Come on Carol. You can do this.  You've raised kids to adulthood. It's a dance recital picture.  Just get in there. Be confident. You've got this!"  (I wish I was kidding. But I'm not. It was very stressful.)

The second we walked into the room, I knew I was totally out of my element.  All around me were little girls with glittery hair and rosy cheeks and thick, dark mascara-laden eyelashes.

I pretended not to notice, but in my head all I could think was, "No one said anything about make-up in that meeting! I didn't know about make-up! They are FIVE! Why do they need make-up?"

One mom walked up to me and said, "It's kind of crazy, right?" (Clearly the fear was evident on my face.)

My response was, "Let's just say soccer pictures were way easier than all this!"

She patted my back in that reassuring, "Oh-honey-you'll-get-it" sort of way and walked over to the other group of more confident-looking moms.

As we waited, moms and daughters took selfies. They posed in groups, the moms equally as done up as their cute little girls.  I have no idea how they got themselves AND their daughters that put together.  We barely survived getting out the door, and I was a mess.  Sweaty, hair disheveled . . . seriously, a hot mess. (But in my defense, I had to get TWO girls ready, just saying.)

Finally it was time for pictures. The photographer placed the tall glittery girls on the pinnacle of the stage, and then dragged out these two "s-shaped" props.  As the photographer took each of my girls by the hand and led them to those props, I smiled a little smile.  I knew she was going to try to get my girls to sit on those props.

Nikki . . .
Sitting, on a prop . . .
A curvy prop . . .
With ten more girls waiting to be positioned in the photo.

Let's just say by the end of that decision, the photographer looked as sweaty and disheveled as I did.  It was my tiny little bit of revenge for the hell I had endured to get my girls there.

All that to say, I survived dance recital picture day. And when the actual recital day comes, I'll be ready, armed with a video camera, because knowing my two girls, I very well could have a $10,000 winning t.v. appearance in my future.

(Oh, and also, I have NO PICTURE to go with this post. That's how nervous I was! I'll come back later, when I get the pictures back, and post some pics!  But until then, I'm giving you this cute movie of the girls dancing. Turn up your volume!)