Recital time already?

Recital always wears me out. The costumes, the hair, the tights, the makeup....the list is endless. Last night was the first night of dress rehearsals and we found out that Chelsea has scarce time to change her costumes. It goes like this. We start in the very cool tap costume (my favorite by far) with hair in a high side ponytail.

Next, she changes to a ballet costume with very big tutu and hair up in a bun. I have to get better at this quick hair change thing. This year the dresssing rooms are a ridiculous distance from the stage entrance. She has to sprint down the hall after dancing to get changed and ready for the next thing. So she dresses and lightening quick we pull the hair out of the ponytail, make a new one in the middle of her head, braid it, twist it and pin in and then pin in the flowers and she's out of there again. I'm not even dancing and she's wearing me out already.

After that she's racing back down the hall to get back into another tap costume, hair out of the bun, into two low ponytails (if this poor girl still has hair after all this yanking and pulling it will be a miracle) and new tights! Gads. We just changed tights for real. Now she's got to sprint back down the hall to get on stage in time. Sprinting in tap shoes is NEVER recommended.

After tap she's got a few precious seconds to change into her jazz costume. The hair has to go back up to a high ponytail, two piece costume on, jazz shoes on and racing back down the hall. At least we didn't have to change the tights that time.

Finally she's coming to the end and she's got one more costume to get into and it's a doozy. I think this costume was designed by a contortionist. Seriously! The thing is impossible to get into quickly. And the shorts...are you for real? She has more material on her underwear than on these shorts. My husband has a coronary every time he sees this costume and then questions what the costume fee was for this class. He can't see how something so small could cost so much.

She stays in the same costume and hair style for the finale, thank goodness.

In the midst of that chaos is the younger daughter who only has three dances but has to change with the older girls because I can't be in both rooms at once. She has one quick change but it's while Chelsea is out of the room so thankfully we aren't rushing two girls into new costumes at the same time. And blessing of all blessings, her hair stays in a bun the whole recital. Yay!


Every year I'm so tired at the end of all this, and yet I keep doing it. Honestly, I do enjoy the whole dance mom thing. It's fun. Don't mistake this post for complaining, I'm not at all. I love that the girls are so involved and have such fun doing it.

Someone remind me of that statement in the winter when I'm carting everyone to umpteen different practices in the freezing cold. *grin*

Tonight we do it all over again for the second night of dress rehearsals and then tomorrow, the recital. Mark video tapes the recital and then I make dvds for the parents. It's fun to make them and then people don't worry about bringing their cameras and blocking the view of those around them with their cameras.

I have other goodies to share, but those are for another post. I've got to go organize dance costumes now.