The day I saved a ballerina's life

It happened so quickly.

Seven tiny ballerinas, lined up at the barre, ready to do their tondues. Pink, fluffy tutus, shiny buns, impossibly small leotards, on three year old bodies.

"Miss Melyssa?" I hear. Actually, she probably said "Miss Melyse?" Because my boss's name is Elyse and they tend to combine us. Like Brangelina.

"Yes, Gwen, do you need to go potty?" I stop, mid tondue.

"LOOK!" She points at her pink tights.

My eagle eyes see:

But what I REALLY see and I'm sure she does too, is:

Not fearing a bit for my safety, my adrenaline kicked in.


Me:

Armor is very slimming.

With the strength of ten men, plus two, I remove the hideous monster from her leg and smash it to smithereens with my ballet shoe. It is easily larger than my shoe, and the pink is covered in spider goo and blood and gore. *


"You killed my spider!" Her eyes are big as saucers and her voice quavers.

The rest of the ballerinas look at me as if I just put five rounds of bullets in Minnie Mouse or throttled the life out of Mrs Claus.

Evidently, they make ballerinas tougher these days.

I apologized for saving their lives and we went back to tondues.







*not really



P.S.  You have no idea what I went through googling images of spiders for you. Really. I deserve some major chocolate, decadent coffee drinks, blogging awards, or copious amounts of Merlot for what I do for you three readers.

Feet

Things we know about my feet:

1.  They are hobbit feet. Short, and chubby, and somewhat square.

2.  Also know as Flintstone feet.

3.  Also known as Maple Bar feet.

4.  They used to be able to do things like this:

But then they got old and extra Maple-y, and now they look like this:

not me. Einstein. But we share a love of fuzzy footwear.

Anyway, the girls were complaining all last week that the Mommobile smelled. Specifically, they whined, it smelled like rotten yogurt.

Seeing as how they're the ones who eat in the Mommobile, not the Mom for which it was named, I gave them the task of cleaning it out. There's probably something nasty that you gremlins forgot you left back there somewhere, said I.

Let it be known, I could not smell the odoriferous culprit myself.

Turns out it was coming from the front seat, not the back, and they traced it to my dance bag - specifically, my ballet shoes. Which I don't think smell at all. I mean, they're no petunias, but come on. Rotten yogurt? I'm insulted. Frodo. I really am.

When I Grow Up I Want to Be a Ballerina.


Originally published by Home Educating Family Magazine.  Reprinted with permission by the author (that's me).

Growing up homeschooled in the eighties and nineties gave my little sister and me the time, focus, dedication, drive, and commitment that it took to fulfill (almost) every little girl’s dream:  becoming ballerinas.  Of course there are little girls who scoff at tutus and tiaras and dream instead of cowgirl boots and mud pies (like a certain someone I gave birth to) but “When I grow up I want to be a ballerina” is a common wistful sigh on the lips of plenty of feminine youngsters.

The world of performing arts is a beautiful, timeless thing.  It’s also demanding, unyielding, competitive, and harsh.  The beauty of a ballerina in her sparkling white tutu is evenly matched with the bruised body and bloodied toes.  The life of a performer is at best, a dream come true, and at worst, self-destructive.  Can a starry eyed little homeschooled girl overcome the odds and live a fulfilling life on stage?

The answer, of course is yes. 

For the baby bunheads:

For just about every dance school out there, the little three and four year olds are the bread and butter of the business.  Creative Movement begins at that age and classes are filled to the brim with skipping, frolicking, twirling and swirling little tutu-ed sweet peas.  At Creative Movement you can expect your daughter to learn the basics of her body and the spaces that body fills, music and the differing sounds of beats and counts, role play, imagination, a smattering of ballet vocabulary, and all in all, a love for dance.  Expect an exuberant teacher who has a personality similar to a Disney princess, a class time of around 45 minutes once per week, a recital/showcase/performance where your sweetie will forget absolutely everything she learned, and expect to pay approximately $40 per month (depending on where you live).  Don’t expect Little Anna Pavlova to emerge at this age, but yes, you certainly can see talent this young…and everyone sees it in their daughter!

At around the ages of five to seven, more technique is introduced.  Your ballerina should be in a class that is one hour long in length, one time per week, and should know quite a few French words of vocabulary.  She should know all the basics, like plie, tondue, battement, jete, and the Five Positions (although they will only be using three).  This would be considered a Pre-Ballet level.  There will be stretching, barre work and center work.

For the elementary age bunheads:

At around the double digit age, ballet students should expect to take twice per week.  Levels in Ballet 1-4, or thereabouts, should expect a class time of 1-11/2 hours per class, higher intensity, opportunities to perform, and a good foundation of the art of ballet.  This can be an intimidating age to begin ballet, but there are always enough brand new 10-13 year olds who can be grouped in a class together in order to catch up.  Remember, there is always a phenom out there that you don’t want your daughter to compare herself to! 

For the teenage bunheads:

Once your daughter has entered into the teen years and has been in ballet for a good length of time you can expect extremely long hours, sore muscles, fierce competition, a fuel tank that is always on Empty, a separate bank account for point shoes, and rehearsals stacked on top of rehearsals.  Oh, and utterly terrifying toes that would make a grown lumberjack squeal like a little girl.  This is the age where they either drop out completely, or they dedicate themselves completely.  Neither option is wrong; it’s simply nearly impossible to dance at this age “for fun.”  The whole family will need to decide if this is a sacrifice they are willing to make.  Sacrifices can include relocation, financial stress, body image issues, and the devastation that can come if her dreams don’t materialize the way she envisioned.    This doesn’t mean that the journey isn’t worth it, but young ladies need to be encouraged to remember that is more to life than dancing. I don't like hearing expressions like, I would die without ballet. It's my whole life. There is no guaranteed happy ending for the passionate sixteen year old who believes ballet is her whole life and she would perish without it.  Injuries happen.  Lack of true talent happens.  God’s will happens.  Staying rooted and grounded in faith and family will be crucial in a young artist’s maturity. 

Have lots of good talks with your daughter about body image and health.  Unfortunately, eating disorders among ballerinas are very common place, accepted, and occasionally encouraged.  Sadly, healthy lifestyles are not the norm in the performing world.  It’s similar to driving by a hospital and seeing the nurses out back smoking: drive by a theater or art school and you’ll typically find the ballerinas smoking and drinking Diet Coke.  For some, this is the mainstay of their diet.

Find a studio:

Depending on the size of your town you may have little to choose from, or you may have a dance studio on every corner, like a Starbucks but without the caffeine.  Asking around and discovering their reputation is one great way to know where to start.  However please remember that one bad critique or review of a studio may not be the gospel truth!  Teachers juggle a delicate balance every day of loving strictness and the ever present “Stage Mom” can be a difficult beast to appease.  For every unhappy parent there are probably fifty happy ones, so be sure to get a lot of opinions.  If the over-all reputation is one of being too harsh, too flippant, too pricey, too flaky, or if you get the impression the owner is just someone who hung a shingle out front because her last business went under, then run don’t walk.  Or perhaps we should say chasse don’t pas de bourree!

For the boys:

Generally speaking, it’s the little girls who develop an interest in ballet, but of course there are boys too, who show a talent for dance.  And we’re so lucky they do!  What would a pas de deux be without the prince?  Male dancers have a bit of an easier time making a living with dancing, landing better roles, getting more attention, and snagging those scholarships, all because the competition is less ferocious. 

Final Curtain:

A simple Google search will bring up studios in your area, and also colleges with dance programs, Christian dance companies, performances, reviews, blogs, and biographies.  Have fun with your dancer and most of all, enjoy the show!

P.S.

And please don't watch the show, Dance Moms. Talk about ridiculous. That woman turns out some talented dancers, yes (if you like the trashy, pre-teen stripper look), but her and those moms make me want to bang my head on my desk repeatedly. 

A Day in the Life of

My daze are weird and oddball and funny looking.  A lot like my family in most cases, now that I think about it, so it's fitting.  Each one is a bit different due to my funky working schedule as a ballet teacher.  A typical day though, goes a little something like this:

6 a.m.  Hubby awakes and makes the coffee.  This is Reason #1 why I keep him.

Between 6:30 and 7:30 I roll out of bed, due to four year old tap dancing on my face, and drink the said coffee.  I have recently realized that the amount of coffee I pour into my mug and the amount of coffee that actually finds its way down my gullet are not one and the same.  I lose the same cup several times and though I always pour another, I rarely get time to drink it.  Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse comes on as I make His Royal Stinkiness his "nice and warm" (warmed almond milk) and oatmeal.  Unless we're out of oatmeal and then he may or may not eat last night's chocolate lava cake.  No comment.  I make myself eat something though I am not hungry in the morning.  If I don't, I'll forget, and then I'll be flying around the house on a broom by noon.

The girls are up by this time and jump into their school work in pajamas (because we all know that the Number One Reason for Home Education is the pajamas).  In the process of teaching them to be independent workers - something I pursued with feverish abandon in K-2nd grades - they now basically school themselves.  They write their own schedules, set their own alarm clocks, and are off like gang busters.  It's weird.  I love it.  Why?  Because I love homeschooling but I hate teaching school, that's why.  If you've homeschooled, you understand.  I never wanted to be a schoolmarm.  I am not good with a ruler or chalkboard and I wear my hair in buns for work already and I don't want the bobbypin headache.

NOT ME ^

ME  ^

I shower.  Not alone of course.  I have three kids.  And a dog.  Who is fiercely determined that he must protect me from shower or potty monsters and must accompany me always.  I haven't been alone in the little girl's room since 1999.

If I have a morning class, I sneak out quietly so Gianni doesn't have a melt down.

At ballet, one ballerina pees on the floor which causes another to...pee on the floor.  Nervous bladders are contagious.  A dance mom is irritated with me and I feel stressed out.  Also, Teddy Bear's Picnic is monstrously aerobic and I am sore from doing "super dooper side splits."

When I get home the house is a wreck because that's what happens when I leave for a couple hours:  a tornado of toast crumbs, toys, Legos, pencils, wrappers, and bandaids attack my house.  It is unexplained but it is predictable.  I clean the floors and load up the dishwasher.  I check on the girl's work, help Cora with prime numbers, inform Anna for the upteenth time that the state of her bedroom makes me want to toss my cookies (at this point Gianni shouts, "cookies?? I want cookies!") and get out the left overs for lunch.  The kids have been selling hot cocoa on the corner every day, so after lunch they whip up a bath, grab their trusty tip jar, and set up shop.  I use the free moments to grade papers, fold laundry, clip coupons check Facebook, answer emails, work on a magazine article that's on a deadline, pin things on Pinterest.  I've been helping a local teen with her writing, so I quickly proofread her latest essays.  Gianni is cold and comes back to help around the house try my patience.  And search for the ever elusive cookie he's sure is around somewhere.  We read Sandra Boynton books until I turn into a hippo myself and go berserk.

After the kiddos make a few bucks they netflix a documentary or watch a recorded episode of Fetch with Ruff Ruffman.  Snacks all around.  Gianni is learning to read (drat him!) so we do a chapter out of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  I get ready to leave for work again.  Put something in the crockpot.  Cora gets dropped off at swim practice, Anna comes along as my assistant, Gianni hangs with grandpa.

No one pees in inappropriate places.  Success! I debate graduating a couple hard working bunheads to the next level and have a heart to heart with a fretful mom. Another mom is interested in homeschooling and asks how do I it all?  I laugh hysterically.  Dance moms are funny.  Weird, but funny.

Hubby will pick up Cora so I swing by some overdue library items and grab a couple things at the grocery store.  At home again I thank Grandpa McPhee and clean up the house yet again.  I put some Civil Wars on the cd player, which competes in a harmonious way with the sound of the Mario Cart in the living room, pour a glass of wine, and chop veggies for salad.  "But where are the cookies?" moans Gianni woefully.  I text my sister twenty five times or so and Anna sets the table.  Cora is ravenous from swim practice when she gets home and Hubby and I spend the next two hours trying to finish a sentence in the middle of lovely chaos.    We play some card games, do a Star Wars puzzle for the 123497.239587 time today, load up the dishwasher, and start the bedtime process.  This involves snuggles, books, teeth, water, potty, tucking ins, music, etc.  Repeat eleventy seven times.   On what kid planet does getting out of bed to ask to be tucked back in make sense?   Hubby and I netflix The Office and forget to talk about our days.  We'll remember tomorrow when the kids are up and we can't get a word in edgewise.

Sleep.  Repeat.

Beelzebub crafts and so do I

The only time of year I do crafty type things is December, zero hour, right before Christmas.  


And by crafty I mean hot glue, glitter, needles and thread kind of crafty, not rub my crone hands together and stir my cauldron kind of crafty.  I don't even own a cauldron.  


So here's what Miss Anna and I have been working on lately:

The lotions are a fun recipe that should have been a piece of cake but actually involved me searching for three weeks for a food processor, finding said food processor on craigslist, picking it up, searching high and low for beeswax, discovering it costs four jillion smillion dollars, frantically texting my crafty queen, Genesis, for alternate ideas, promising to kiss her feet when she told me to go to a health food store and buy a beeswax candle ($4, not four jillion smillion dollars), go to said health food store, learn to work food processor (which I love almost as much as I love Genesis), and then making five times as many batches as I thought I would have to because the amount was very small.

Whew.

We call it Vanilla Pudding Lotion because it looks like vanilla pudding.  There isn't any vanilla in it though.  I should have called it Honey Pudding Lotion but I didn't think of it until now and I used a sharpie to make my tags.

Cause sharpies are where it's at.  Booyah.

These are batches of my favorite facial wash.  I've been using this and nothing else for three years now and I love, love, love it.  You will love it too if you jump feet first into the Oil Cleanse Method, promise.  All it is is extra virgin olive oil (I use 3/4 of the bottle) and castor oil (1/4) and a couple drops of tea tree oil.  It takes off make up like a dream and leaves your skin softer than a baby's bum.  Plus, it's cheap.  And it doesn't sting your eyes when you accidentally buy water proof mascara.  So, anyway, you just massage it in and take it off with a very hot cloth.  Voila!  Dewy skin that is free of chemicals and animal byproducts and questionable things.

More lotions.  I hope my little sister, niece, and mom in law aren't reading this.  If you are, girls, please practice your surprised/delighted faces when you open these.

Thanks.

These are headbands I made for my wittle bunheads at the ballet studio.

All thirty something of them.

I may or may not have hot glued my fingers together at some point.   Hey, look!  I do have crone's hands.  

And of course, there are the obligatory batches of homemade deliciousness.  My favorite is the toffee in the christmas tree jar.  That's for my soon-to-be brother in law.  


Please ignore the crumbs and sequins in the crevices of my table.  Thanks for averting your eyes.


Oh, and I also made a scrapbook!!!!  That's a four exclamation point sentence right there.  I hate scrapbooking.  It's from the devil.  My personal hell will be a never ending scrapbooking party, complete with frightening paper cutting devices and endless stickers, with Lucifer barking orders at me about crooked borders and embellishments.  But I do love Anna and I do love how much she loved Nutcracker and how many photos she took, so I whipped em all up at Walgreens, scotch taped em all onto fancy paper, stuck em in an album, and wrapped it up under the tree.


The things I do for love.


Merry Christmas and may all your crafting be pain free, sparkly, and merry!

I Dance With The Rice Krispy Boys

These days I am lucky enough to be teaching ballet again.  We're talking Creative Movement, guys.  Some Pre-Ballet.  Maybe a Ballet 1A.  Half the class is spent trying to convince little Kaitylyn to come in the studio and the other half is spent trying to untangle tiaras from leotards.  Nothing majorly hard, right?  Right.  Long gone are the days when I could do something like this to impress little glitter bedecked princesses:

...or this spiffy number:

...or even this:

Umm, not entirely sure that last one was ever possible. 


But nowadays, as my bones snap, crackle and pop their way down into the splits, I look more like this:

I am not sure when old age crept up on me, but creep it did.   In fact, old age is a creep!  Yes!  I said it!  Take that, Mother Nature!  Or is it Father Time I should be blaming?  They're probably in cahoots, staying up late at night conspiratorially muttering ways to wrench my hip, slip a disk in my back, and pull my hamstrings.   Not to mention cause wiry gray hairs to grow in places I didn't use to have hairs.  Ahem.  Anyhoo.


I swear, today I was sitting on the floor with my little angel monkeys in a side split - a REALLY pathetic one, at that - and as we pretended to paint the air with beautiful colors and then stretch over to our neighbor's feet, I about passed out.  My legs were screaming obscenities at me and my back let out a crack that was heard round the world.  And I didn't even know my legs could cuss!  They used to be well behaved legs who would never dream of cursing in the ballet studio.  Back before Old Age hit.


"Can we do leaps now, Miss Melyssa?" the little pink  whippersnappers clamored. 


"Miss Melyssa has fallen and can't get up, kids...umm, how about a water break? Don't you guys need to go potty?  It's been like, three minutes, for the love of Baryshnikov, someone's gotta pee by now, right?"


"Leaps!  Leaps!  LEAPS!  With crowns and wands and fairy rings!!"


"Absolutely,"  I croak, and try to raise my head off my knee where it has been stuck,  "Just help Miss Melyssa up...and I'm gonna try to not throw up. Yep.  OK, I need another minute.  Leap without me, girls.  I'll be right there.  As soon as I pop my hip back into place.  AAAAARRRRGH! There we go, my little tutu-ed drill sergeants...I'm back."


Yes, indeedy.  I'm back.


And I need some Motrin, a heating pad, and a bottle of something red, STAT.

A Post About Absolutely Nothing

Have you ever thought you didn't like something but then tried it again, after like, I don't know, 32 years and say,

'What have I been missing?'

That happened recently with both cocktail sauce (come to Mamma, yummy spicy deliciousness, come to Mamma!) and blueberries, which frankly, I still don't love and adore the same way I do, say, canned 'shrooms, but are in fact, quite nice. 

I remember eating a sundried tomato at the age of about 12 and having to discreetly spit it out in the trash.  It was that horrifyingly awful.  Now I could snarf an entire basket.  Pound?  Bushel?  Peck?  A hug around the neck?

Potato chips and cake and butter.  All I most likely would have loved all along but didn't eat for ten years due to being a neurotic ballerina.  Neurotic ballerinas don't eat those things.  Actually, not true, most do but then there are things going on later in the dressing room involving vomiting and since I was certainly not ever going to go that route, I elected not to eat them period. 

Someone just today asked me,

'Hey, can you still do the ballerina?'

I think he meant 'can I still dance ballet?'  But it sorta sounded like doing the macarena and I had to stifle a giggle.

I cannot really do the ballerina these days but I can still do a mean macarena.

You will never convert me to a love of mayo and sweet pickles though so don't even try.  Also anything with fake sugar.  Or cancer sprinkles as I like to call em.  Which will make people who love their sweet and low think I am bashing them for their flavor lifestyle of choice when I am not and you probably shouldn't listen to me because I also am of the opinion that sunscreen more than likely gives you skin cancer.  That being said, I am not a doctor, I just play one on blogger.

Speaking of doctors, oh my dear, dear Dr Shepherd, I am losing hope that I will ever finish Lost.  It sits, gathering dust on top my entertainment center, where I almost, practically, just about get to attempt to try to start watching it.  I remember when I could watch a 90 minute movie in, get this, 90 minutes!  92 if there was a need for a potty break.  Now a 90 minute movie takes me approximately 4 months.  I'm not the world's best mathematician, but I am pretty certain that a long running television show will be fully finished and enjoyed by yours truly at about the same time I am a withered old crone chasing young children off my lawn and feeding my 14 cats and filing my bunions on my wrinkly age-spotted feet.

I actually had this experience just last month (not the bunion filing one, the one where I attempt to watch a whole movie in  one two three   four days.)  I borrowed Leap Year from my dear pal, Mariah, who is the queen of chick flicks, and I was quite excited about the eye candy boy with the irish accent watching a movie all by my lonesome, one that didn't involve The iHannah Montana of Waverly Place with Deadliest Warrior VS Food.  It took me four painful, angst filled days where I was sneaking off to the laptop for three minutes here and there to hit Play only to be met with a desperate holler from some juvenile delinquent who wanted my undivided attention.  To be honest, I am not even a big fan of the chick flick and I didn't even particularly adore this one, but it was a point of honor suddenly that I get to finish this darn movie if it killed me.  At the end of the four days when I was stewing in frustration and determined to finally reach the credits and I knew, gosh dang it, I was only ten minutes away from my typical Hollywood ending, Mike broke into my bedroom sanctuary. 

'Leave me alone!'  I said with all the maturity I could muster.

'Whatcha watching?'

'Go away. I'm not here. I'm in Ireland with Cutie McWhatshisface.'

'Ok.  Just gonna make a phone call.  Right here.  By your ear.  With my bass, opera trained voice.  Talking to my mom.  Just pretend like I'm not here.'

'AAAAAAAAAAGH!'

The end.



 

autumn daze

But, Mom, I don't need a nap!  See?  I'm wide awake!  I'm not tired! I'm - zzzzzzz...

The last of the summer garden cucumbers.

Well, the first couple weeks of school (juggling 5 public schoolers, two homeschoolers, and one Tasmanian devil who has discovered scissors) is under our belt.  We've already had our first back-to-school colds making the rounds, with Provolone down with it today.  I haven't been sick in a long while so I'm getting nervous...I might be due.  Anyone want to fill in for me if I come down with the Plague? Hello?  The days are going by incredibly fast.  Gone are the times with my hubs when we can sit down after a long day and watch something on the telly at night.  Too much homework.  I don't much care for most of this homework.  Shouldn't they be doing this in school?  I already spent several hours homeschooling, it confuses me as to why I have to spend two more each night.  It's becoming a soapbox with me.  And I'm not bashing teachers, I just didn't go to public school so all this is new to me.  If the students do all their actual "work" at home with their parents, or respective guardians, then what do they spend 8 hours a day doing in school?  But anyway.  It's a good thing I married one of those people who never forget things (except to bring home milk) because I am not good at this:

But if they need help with this, I'm their girl:

Although it's been a while and I would probably get stuck and have to be air lifted to the nearest hospital for back surgery/hip replacement.

Gianni is quite thrilled that his birthday is coming up.  I am not so thrilled.  What happened to that little pudgy ewok I gave birth to, like 10 minutes ago?  Where did he go?  Did this curly haired, dimpled toddler eat him?  There is no proof he ever existed.  I may need to curl up on the bathroom floor and weep for a while.

Carry on.

Ok (strangled sob) I'm better now.

He told me this morning that it was also MY birthday and that I could have a party and then he proceeded to sing the happy birthday song to me.  He also said I would be forty-forty.

Don't judge.  He's homeschooled.  Plus, he eats a lot of playdough.

He would like a tractor cake (surprise, surprise) and told his allergist all about it.  The doctor turned to me and said, 'He reminds me of my middle son.  The one I am always surprised is still living.'  I can only assume he said that because as he walked in the door, Gianni was airborne in the middle of a belly flop off the examining table.  He landed well and we gave him a 8.5.

The weather here is officially fall and I only have to go outside and breathe the lovely chilly air and take a walk to see all the trees turning to make my day seem calm and serene and perfect.  Ok, ok, some days it takes more than orange leaves to make everything serene, but for about a nano second there, the world stands still.  Then someone yells for me and someone else yells 'I found her' and then they drag me out from under the tree and force me to be a mother and responsible adult again.  I consider whining and stomping my feet and throwing myself prostrate on the grass, but they'll only demand more dinner and help with the iron and signatures on school papers and threats to drink all my coffee, so I finally give in and stomp back inside.  Must get better hiding places.  And bring dark chocolate.  And Cabernet Savignon.