Dance School

I have to confess that I am one of those mothers who has their kids in Dance classes, but wishes she was in a class too…
But my girls enjoy it too, so I don’t need reprimanding. They especially enjoyed it today, when their tap costumes arrived. Thank goodness I don’t have to sequin these ones, or the Tigger costumes (yup, that’s right, I agreed to 3 eisteddfod items, crazy me).

The Jazz costume consists of a sleeved leotard and double-circle skirt. The sleeves and skirt are gingham, and the dance school principal decided we must individually sew a sequin to every single white square of gingham. This seems to me like total betrayal to anyone who actually has other responsibilities in life, and all for a 3 minute item. I’m a strong believer in a healthy effort to effect ratio, but no such philosophy seems to exist in the dance world (at least not with this dance school). It is unfortunate also that this decision was made after we had agreed to do the item, and no one seemed to have a say in the matter.
Andrea (one of the other dance mums) took pity on me because I am the only mum with 2 girls in the item. It must have taken her 30 hours or so to sequin Leila’s skirt for me. I can’t believe she did that for me: I feel very grateful.
I’ve been sequining all week and I’ve only done about a quarter of Beth’s skirt. All four sleeves are finished though.
One of my other whinges about Dancing is the communication method. I soooooo wish they would use email, but no such luck. Notices are posted in various inconsistent methods, including in a narrow doorway (just add a dozen or so parents and kids into the 1 meter wide thoroughfare, and then try to hold a non-compliant toddler in one hand while you take notes with the other, and mind the toddler doesn’t escape/fall down the concrete staircase while you are trying to get the details down). Photographing the notice and reading it later seems to work best for me.
Note the size and legibility of the writing, and the fact that the details have changed since last week, but nobody actually told me, so isn’t it lucky that I realised. Also parents aren’t supposed to go into the change rooms and I’d better stop there because you don’t really want to read any more whinging.
Good things are that the teachers do a fantastic job, the costumes and music are age appropriate, and that there are lots of lovely kids and mums to spend time with. Plus my girls can dance!
Hannah was terribly jealous about the new leotards. She raided the dress-up box for a tutu as well. Now I just have to ensure that the costumes survive intact until the performances are complete, oh, and sew sequins.