Watch Out Maddie, There's a New Dancer in Town

Tap tap tap. Is this thing on? Hello? Okay, okay so I know I totally vanished off the face of the blogosphere (is that even a word?)  I could give you my reasons but they are sad and depressing and who the hell needs that, right? Anyways, I'm back and better than ever with a few (a lot) more grey hairs than I had a year ago.

First off, I lost about forty pounds.  At least half of it was stress related, but hell, I'll take it.  With the weight loss came a big transformation.  As my depression started to lift, I started focusing on myself and my needs since everything has been nothing but kids, kids, kids for the last eighteen years (oh yeah, I have an 18 year old now…gulp).

I danced a teeny tiny bit in college and loved it, but then I got pregnant with child number three and pregnant women and ballet leotards don't mix, so I quit. I didn't think I'd ever get to take a dance class ever again, but recently I started looking around and there are actually quite a few options for beginner adults who want to learn to dance. Lucky for me, a friend said she also wanted to take dance classes, so we signed up together which made it a little less intimidating.

Although I signed up a couple of weeks before my first class started, I waited until the day of my first class to buy my dance gear. Yes, I'm a procrastinator of the worst kind (just ask my children when their school supplies or Halloween costumes are purchased). There is one main dance wear store in our city that is pretty much the motherlode of all things dance (tap, jazz, ballet, Zumba, gymnastics, probably even stripper attire although I didn't look--next visit).

Since I'm a big chicken and was too afraid to walk into the dance wear store myself, I forced my husband and two young boys to come with me. Much less stressful than going alone, right? Yeah. Sometimes these things sound better in my head than in reality.  Of course the boys thought it was great fun running around the circular racks grabbing sequined hats and feathered boas while I stumbled around the store being completely ignored by two employees who looked like actual professional dancers…tall, thin, elegant, and oblivious to the fact that I'm stumbling around their store like a husband lost in a lingerie shop on Valentine's Day.

I feel your pain Julia Roberts. We are the same.  

After I gathered up some nerve I walked up to the counter and said, "I need help" and one of them took pity on me and said, "Okay, let's get you fitted for shoes."  Of course I just had to wear my black flats without socks that smell so bad that you can't take them off without tossing them into the back of the closet, shutting the door and running away.  They are beyond Odor Eaters. They really should be burned, but I'm pretty sure they are flame retardant at this point. I have no doubt that my feet were disgusting and smelly but at this point I had bigger problems. Like how I was going to squeeze my sweaty, swollen foot into a slipper that was crinkled up to look like an elf shoe made to fit a Build a Bear.  I did manage to get my foot into the shoe, but my toes curled up and the thought of dancing in them made me a little stabby. So she handed me another crinkled up elf shoe that honestly looked the same size as the previous elf shoe, but she swore it was bigger and this time my toe went to the end of the shoe which I guess is how they are supposed to fit. Whatever. I did briefly notice that there were two elastic straps hanging out, but I'll explain more on that later. 

After the shoes she said, "Now you just need to go find something comfortable to wear" and went back behind the counter.  Yeah, she totally abandoned me. Bitch. I looked out into a sea of various colored strappy spandex items and honestly felt like I was going to cry as I thumbed through racks and racks of leotards that claimed to be adult sized, but looked like they had a better chance of fitting my five year old.  Let's just say that the majority of these leotards are not cut for women with breasts, especially women like myself who breastfed four babies if you know what I'm saying. Mmmhhhhmmm. 

I finally found the plain, more modest looking black cotton leotards that didn't look totally Mormon, but at least allowed me to wear a bra and then grabbed some stretchy pants. I was going to buy some pink tights and a wrap around skirt but after trying on the first leotard with some short shorts, I'm glad I didn't. Did you know that they make about a million variations of tights? It's really kind of ridiculous. My husband and sons had already abandoned me at the dance store at this point so I ended up buying the first outfit that didn't give me a wedgie and left. Who am I kidding? They ALL gave me a wedgie.  

When I got home I still had a couple of hours left until class. I tried on my shoes and couldn't for the life of me figure out how to tie the elastic straps. First I tried to criss cross the straps and tie them behind my ankle. Not only did my foot look like a pig in a blanket, but I'm pretty sure I was mere seconds away from amputation, as my foot started to turn fifty shades of purple. I wondered if dancers just didn't have ankles? Or maybe I  had cankles?  

In a panic I started YouTubing things like, "How do you tie ballet shoes?" Several video tutorials popped up. Thank goodness for YouTube for realizing that people are stupid. It took a while but sure enough I found a video with the exact same brand of shoes that I had purchased and it said, "How to sew the elastic straps on your child's ballet slippers" SEW? Say what? Of course the black swan at the dance store failed to mention anything about sewing as I would've laughed in her face. Or perhaps she did, but I was too busy focusing on the fact that my toes were morphing into curly fries to notice. Either way I broke into a cold sweat. 

This is some bullshit. 

I gathered up my sewing supplies and began to sew. It took me over an hour to sew down the straps on shoe number one but I did it. As I shoved my sweaty, swollen foot back into my elf shoe, my heart sank. I sewed the straps on backwards.  No, really. I did. 

I threw the shoe across the room and started to think maybe I should take up a different hobby. A book club was sounding pretty darn good at that moment.  I cut the threads and started over. I finished the shoes just in time as my husband was calling me on his way home from work to ask if our daughter was ready for soccer practice. Daughter? Wait, I have kids? CRAP! Yeah, that was my reaction as I was so focused on sewing my shoes, I pretty much forgot that I had a child who was now late for practice. 

The next hour was complete chaos but somehow the husband and kids made it to soccer practice, while I made it to the dance studio, found my friends and got ready for class. Since it was listed as a "beginner's class" I was expecting that we would introduce ourselves, learn the positions (which I had long since forgotten) and take things slow and easy. Nope. Not at all how things went.  As soon as we set down our purses, it was pretty much "Okay ladies, line up at the barre and repeat these sequences after me" as she rattled off about fifty moves at a hundred miles an hour, followed by, "And then we'll turn and do it on the other side. Got it?" 

Beginner's class my ass. 

I briefly contemplated spraining my own ankle in a feeble attempt to escape any further humiliation or injury. Three of the ladies in the group were experienced dancers, who had multiple years of experience. The three of us friends who signed up together? Not so much. I'm sure we looked like an SNL skit but we hung in there until the very end, even when she was yelling out foreign words to us like, "fondu" which to me means "Oh cool we're going to the Melting Pot to dip some bread and shit into a steaming hot bowl of melted cheese" but FYI that's not what it means at all in ballet terms. 

After class I couldn't even walk down the stairs. My legs felt like Jello Pudding Pops. The next day was even worse, but today, I'm feeling okay.  I'm actually looking forward to my next class. I'm not giving up and I will become a ballerina dammit, even if it kills me. 

Maybe for Sia's next music video she will need a future version of herself in which she's a bit older, saggier mom to multiple kids, sitting in the carpool lane in her pajamas eating two day old soggy crackers out of her daughter's lunch box. If that's the case then watch out Maddie Ziegler cause I totally got this. 

My before class photo and after class photo

and yes, I should've gone to the bar after class and 

maybe I would've had I been able to feel my legs...

You smell like gorgonzola

I'm bored. And please spare me your, "If you're bored then you're boring" because that's telling me something I already know.  Duh.  I am boring!  Seriously though, the endless summer days just draaaaaaag on at times.  I love my kids. I do. But there are only so many, "Mom, will you get me...." or "Mom, can I have a......." or "Mom, he called me a......" that I can take without snapping.  Jeezus!!!!

Yesterday was one of those days where I kept checking Facebook like a bazillion times, hoping for some excitement, but apparently boring people have boring friends because there wasn't any good drama to speak of.  Rather just pictures of cats or food or cats eating food...sigh.  Of course it's highly possible that i've been blocked from most of my friends. I don't really blame them.  I'm kind of a whiner.  I know people hate the whiners on Facebook, but I personally have a soft spot in my heart for the negative nellies.  I'm more of a "If you can't say something nice, then come sit next to me" kinda gal.

I was so bored that I decided I was going to grab the bulls by the balls and pay some bills.  Then I realized that we have several major bills all due this pay period and my hubby doesn't get paid for almost two weeks and I nearly vomited blood from the stress.  So, now i'm bored and broke.

My boredom continued throughout the day and by the time my husband got home from work, I was excited to finally have some adult interaction.  However, my excitement was quickly squashed when I looked to my left and saw him snoring away on the couch, thus leaving me on my own to get his spawn into bed.  That hard working bastard who thinks he deserves a nap!  Geesh!!!!

To top it off i'm almost out of Bengay and i've been in a crap ton of pain lately.  My medical problems suck but since we owe about five kidneys worth of medical bills, I can't really afford to go back at the moment.  I've been lathering myself up with enough Bengay to cover the Golden Girls.  Last night Peanut turned to me and said "Momma, you really stink".   Bo's also had an endearing comment for me, "Mom, you smell like gorgonzola."  Alrighty then.  So i'm boring, broke, in pain and I smell like stinky cheese.

The worst part (aside from smelling like gorgonzola), is that I feel guilty for not being one of those perky moms with tons of energy who dresses her kids up in matchy matchy outfits and takes them to the zoo by myself.  Have you ever been to the Portland Zoo? It may not be the San Diego Zoo, but that son of a biotch is huge!  I can maybe walk through the entrance and then i'm done.  I don't have the stamina nor the patience to attempt outings with my three youngest kids on my own (my teens are gone for two weeks).   I would be on the evening news for sure.

The headline would go something like:

"Tonight's top story....A mom of five got eaten by a gorilla as she fell into his cage while attempting to tie her son's shoe.  Investigators are still trying to piece it all together and many questions still remain like why couldn't her son tie his own shoes?  Zoo employees on the scene believe the gorilla mistakingly thought she was a piece of gorgonzola cheese."

Do gorillas even like gorgonzola?

But anyways, yeah, i'm kind of a klutz.  For example last night I tried to rub some lotion on my legs as I attempted to hoist my giant leg onto the counter.  Just when my hubby was starting to get turned on and had high hopes of getting lucky (yes, sadly when you've been together for a million zillion years, all it takes is a bare leg and the hubby takes that as a sexual advance), my foot slid off the counter and I smacked my face on the counter on the way down to the floor.

Today has been much better though.  My kids woke up screaming for brownies.  My husband said no as he was walking out the door and then looked at me and said, "It's up to you."  Great, just throw me to the wolves why dontcha?

Then the phone rang.  It was my dad who sounded like something was wrong.  I started to panic as he is the only parent I have left and he already had prostate cancer about 15 years ago.  He started off the conversation with, "I have some bad news".  I braced myself and took some deep breaths.  Then he continued with, "I have to go to Portland to do some judging" (my dad is a retired circuit court judge but still works on occasion in case you're wondering).   I nervously asked him, "Ok, so what's the bad news?"  He responded with, "That is the bad news. I'll be in town for a week."   Really, dad?  I mean you couldn't just say on the phone that everything was okay?  My dad thinks he's a comedian (kinda like me), but he's not funny (kinda like me), so his jokes are never funny and are typically inappropriate (now you know who I got it from).  After I recovered from nearly having a heart attack, we started talking about other stuff.  Then the kids realized I was on the phone and they decided that was the perfect time to start screaming about brownies.

The screaming and chaos got my dad off the phone real fast and could possibly explain why he would associate coming to visit us for a week as "bad news".  I would love to see what's in his suitcase. Probably a lifetime supply of ear plugs and Tums.   I don't know, but I must end this now as my son is yelling, "Mom, come wipe my butt". Apparently tying shoes isn't the only skill we need to work on this week.