I missed my blog post last week. Why? Dance Mom Hangover. It’s a thing. In the summer it’s known as County Fair Mom Hangover. I’m sure that this applies to any activity that your kid is in that takes up a lot of time on the weekend and results in late nights, poor food choices, and general exhaustion. Cheer, baseball, volleyball, show choir…I’ve seen it in all of these parents. Depending on how many days you are at said competition/game/event, you may have no groceries, no clean clothes, and no clean dishes. Your dogs will be wild from being left alone for too long. I literally felt like I was drinking all night at a huge party and now have to try to function and go to work and be a mom. I barely made it through the day and was in bed at 8:30 that night.
Have you ever gotten a child ready for a dance competition? The amount of things to get and keep track of is mind-blowing. Tights—tan, black, fishnet plus a backup pair of each. Shoes—tan jazz, black jazz, hip hop, the other hip hop, tap…and we didn’t even need the soft ballet shoes or the pointe shoes. All of the makeup and eyelashes and hair stuff. This year I got her hair extensions. She didn’t know it until they came and was slightly appalled until she put them in and realized that her hair looked a little thicker and her pony tail was a bit bigger. I ask about bobby pins and hair ties and spray gel. Safety pins and sewing kits and all of the pieces for each costume. Body tape and body glue. Earrings—3 styles, choker, bracelet. Now for snacks—protein snacks, quick snacks, sweet snacks, non-messy snacks. Did you put in the steamer? Going through the checklist would make you think we were going on a month-long glamping trip. I iron every costume I can. Some people don’t do that. I have OCD Ironing Syndrome. Give me anything you have, and I will iron it. Nine layers of tulle? I’m on it.
Now you are ready to leave the house. You are armed with the competition schedule, your own snacks, water, caffeine, Tylenol, and BioFreeze for you and the kid. You have figured out what time your kid needs to be ready to dance backed up to what time you need to arrive at the venue to when you need to leave the house and accounting for a stop at Starbucks. You have the other mom’s numbers in your phone and the dance mom Group Me cued up. You would put on some gangster rap for the drive, but there may be things you don’t totally want your kid to know about you, so you settle for listening to competition music the whole way as she marks the routines in the passenger seat. You have planned out when and where to eat and if there is time to leave the venue or if someone will need to pick it up.
Once you get to the venue, you haul this ridiculously heavy Dream Duffle up the stairs to a dressing room that is already so packed you can barely get in. Depending on the age of your child, you will help them get set up, put their costumes in order, and do final touch-up of make-up and hair. If your child is older, they will have immediate anxiety and overwhelm, get snippy, and tell you “I’m FINE, Mom!” This is your cue to get the hell out of there and find your spot in the audience.
Commence competition watching. And watching. And watching. Now bathroom break. Watching some more.
While it is Quite the Deal, the dancers love it, and you do get to see some pretty awesome routines. Watching your kid go on for a solo makes you want to throw up, but it is so fulfilling to watch them do something they love. At the end of all of this, when you haul that Dream Duffle back in the house at 11:30 on a Sunday night hoping that you have all of the shoes and costume accessories you came with, you know what is coming the next day. As proud as you are, there is a piece of you that wonders if you have truly given up any semblance of sanity.
For the record, it takes a minimum of 3 days to recover from Dance Mom Hangover. Probably more.
Peace from the Edge of Exhaustion,
Julia
