Dance Fever

Hi! I'm back! Things have been cray-zee around the casa lately, and with two weeks of school left, there's a lot more to come. We have a dance performance, a play, a smoothie party, a field trip, and a splash day between now and when we leave for 10 days in bea-u-ti-ful Colorado, so I'm just hanging on by my dirty fingernails until then. But since we last talked, here's the haps:

After Feces Fest '07, I spent the rest of the week preparing for The Big Show on Saturday - Peach and Olive's dance recital. It was Peach's fifth and Olive's first, and, as per usual, it was quite the affair - Peach even had a costume change! I volunteered to help with Olive's class backstage, and thanks be to Jeebus I did, because things didn't go as swimmingly come show time as they had at the dress rehearsal that morning. Hers was the very first number, and their costume was the cutest sequined cowgirl outfit this side of the Mississippi. Dress rehearsal was awesome - they all had huge grins, waving and smiling as they tried to dance with their stickhorses. Everything you'd expect from 3 year olds. Adorable.

HowEVER, what we didn't know until show time was that there was a special opening number to kick off the show. So when I herded my eight charges backstage, in the pitch black, we were met by 20 big girls in tie-dyed unitards and these:

So how do YOU think that went over with the Nick Jr. set? NOT WELL. Immediate tears, cries for Mommy, full-on making a break for the door, and at least one request for the potty. I tried everything in the book to try and distract and quiet them as they cowered in the corner, dodging the hula hoops flying off the stage. Making matters worse, I was supposed to get them set and then haul ass around to the other side of the stage to corral them over there at the end of their number. Once I got them down from frantic bawling to quiet sobbing, the music started and I peeled the last one off my leg and made a hasty retreat to my other post. The looks of terror from the other side of the stage were pitiful, so I jumped around like a jackass, trying to make them laugh, and rather than do the happy galloping they'd been doing all year, they all took off at full speed and ran across the stage right into me. I think at that point I picked up Olive and another one, I don't know, I blacked out, but then I had to straighten their hats and shove them back out there for the rest of the number. Surprisingly, they all went, however begrudgingly, and I think there may have even been one or two smiles once they got going. Then once more with the dogpile on top of me at the end, and then I dragged them back to the dressing room, all eight of them attached to some part of my body. Holy crap.

And that was just the first number. Three hours and two costume changes later, we were through. Until next year.