04 Sunday Feb 2018
Posted in Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Do You, Kids, Live in the Moment, Love, Nothing Meaningful, Parenting, Schedule
It is mid dance convention weekend. There has been some stress, but the Girl has danced her heart out and done amazing as have her teammates! The kids are doing an amazing job! I love watching her dance! We we’re there at 7am until 10:30pm I’m spent. I had a great day and will talk about my day more as the week goes on and when I am not so exhausted!
#SLWC2018
28 Sunday Jan 2018
Posted in Be Present, Be You, Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching
Tags
Dance is what you need it to be, Dance it out, Do your art loud and proud, Emotions, interpretation is in the eye of the beholder, What you need and what they need
Today is another day at convention with the Girl. Last night she performed her solo for the first time. The solo that she didn’t want me to see it was all a surprise. I loved it, I loved the costume (except would add some rhinestones to the straps but she wants nothing to do with that!) She got some really great critique from one of the instructors here at the convention. She did great if I critiqued it (which I have not, I am trying to let the professionals do it) I would say get more emotionally into the dance. However, in talking to her she said she messed up a couple parts and felt that she did terrible. I looked pretty good so I know she is a critic of herself so that kind of showed only because she was thinking through it and only I could tell because well, I am her mom. I am glad I made her perform it here to go once through it before she competes next week!
Right now, I am watching Tap. The girl is taking tap off since her injury was her gastric which is a calf muscle and tapping works the calf muscle a lot. They are dancing to a song called “This Is Me” from the Greatest Showman. I am loving this song. My favorite line is “I make no apologies, This is me” I want to live this in my life more. I want my kids to live this way. Live out loud and make no apologies!
That’s part of dance and art in general! One purpose of art is to express of feelings our emotions. Or at least for a place to put our emotions. We put ourselves in a dance we do what the choreographer tells us to. But in dance we bring our life out own emotions. The choreographer saw a picture or had a thought of what they want that dance to look like or feel like and the dancers takes it applies their own experience and transforms it into…. well, ART! This is why I love dance, the performer may bring one thing that the choreographer did not intend but in that moment both emotions are realized along with the emotion and interpretation of the audience! Whatever you feel when you see art is right even if it was not the intended emotions or experience. Nothing is wrong in the world of art…it’s heaven!
I love how you can watch a performance and be inspired to grow, express, love, move or just be loud. You can be the performer and go to the darkest place in your world and get it out and at the end someone saw it and thought it was beautiful even when for you, it came from your ugly place. That’s where the inspiration happens. Like a phoenix our of the ashes of loneliness comes the most beautiful love song. All it takes is getting to the core, you, dancing, from that place that no one sees. Yet even when you dance from that place, they see your most vulnerable piece of you coming out in the safety of dance but they may still not see you they see themselves…that is what makes art of dance so beautiful and gorgeous!
Here this is where transformation happens! Be you be real dance like no one is watching because no one really sees you, they see the deepest most personal and beautiful part of you. They see you for who you are, but they decide who you are and that is okay it doesn’t change you because you are, or your art is who or what they need you to be. That is okay, that is what makes it beautiful!!
#SLWC2018
27 Saturday Jan 2018
Posted in Be You, Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Mom Stuff, Raising Kids
Tags
Awareness, be respectful kid, Dance, I love watching her dance!, just another mom worry, Suicide is a real thing, Talk about it, Talk to your kids
I really don’t know what I was thinking when I thought that I would blog during a dance convention. The Girl is at her first convention of the season. She has been injured so she missed the convention part of the last one her team did. She has sat out 2 of the classes so far because of pain, but is now in the last class of the day which is Hip Hop. I love watching her dance and I love watching these instructors teach. I brought a book to read, my Surface to blog and of course there is always the social media distraction on my phone, and all my mom friends. I really don’t need any distraction! I would be quite content just watching!
I am enjoying watching the Girl dance and sad that she is still having some knee pain. I hope that she can overcome this and dance to her hearts content witout pain. I want her to enjoy her hobby. Not to mention she is so good, I want the world to see her!
I am super excited that I get to watch her solo tonight. She has sheltered me from seeing any of it. She chose a song from the newest Linkin Park album. She was selecting songs and this was my favorite of the top three. She of course didn’t select it because of that, if she knew it was my fave, she probably would have probably taken it off her list. (She is so much a teenage girl right now, “don’t let mom see I am having fun and no way will I enjoy something she suggests.”) She is dancing to “Nobody Can Save Me” She was listening to it today and I almost started crying just listening to the words and everything that is that song; What happend with Chester, emotions and her dancing to it! OMG so powerful. That whole album is so emotional. It was the last one before Chester Bennington committed suicide he wrote at least part of it for Chris Cornell who also committed suicide. I have listened to that album different since Chester passed away and have thought, “it sounds like a really detailed and long suicide note.”
Then my crazy mom head goes…she’s not depressed or having suicidal thoughts is she? Am I there for her enough? Is this teenage girl attitude really normal or a warning sign? It is normal, right? I think so. I am doing my best to let her be who she is. There is fine balance, I hope to continue to walk the tight rope, that she likes me enough to come to me in times she needs someone but hates me enough to be a normal teenager…I let her be who she is, I love that girl. She talks about her feelings but she holds a lot in too. I think dance helps her ‘express’ herself but sometimes she holds back especially when I am watching. I can’t wait to see her solo and I hope she is going to put her emotion into it and I think it will be phenomenal!
I am really enjoying watching her learn and get into the new moves she is learning and having to adjust to protect that injured knee but as I watch her I can tell she is loving it. In her movements she is happy. It is so refreshing to watch. What is fun about these routines is that they can learn them and just dance. They don’t have to worry about being judged or performing it, they get to just have fun with it! They need more time like this to just dance for the love of dance.
Anyway, I am going back to watching dance! This is what I pay for right?!
#SLWC2018
05 Wednesday Jul 2017
Posted in Be Present, Be You, Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Do You, Live in the Moment, Parenting
Tags
Dance, Dance Life, get over yourself, I love watching her dance!, I made her, Love, Mom Life, Parenting is Hard
Well, it has been a while since I have written. I can’t even remember when…to my loyal readers apologies. Today I am writing from Nationals. The Girl is competing in a Nationals Dance Competition. She is in 5 group numbers and a solo. Have I said how much I love to watch her dance? If you have read my blog you have read that a few times! This year the Girl turned 13, she is starting to become her own person. Not that she hasn’t always been her own person but she is just starting to grow up. She definitely wants her own identity. It used to be cute that everyone loved her mom and loved her mom being around but now it’s just not. Not to her anyway. The older dancers are still super sweet to me and seem to understand my pain when I am shunned by my daughter but the Girl just wants to grow her wings. I need to get out of her way and let her make a name for her.
This dance year I have decided it is my job to support her. Many things I hear my Coach Husband say is that parents just need to get out of their kids way. I need to learn that lesson it has been my mom work this year. There is a dance instructor for Liz Imperio who teaches a class called Raising Successful Children that I started but got too busy to finish the webinar (which has been a theme in my life this year) and it’s focus was to guide us parents in how to get out of our children’s way. I love watching her grow, I love watching her dance! There is a part of me that is struggling letting go of that mommy role that needs to be there to protect and guide my child. She is growing up I have taught her to think for herself and stand up for what is right and to advocate for herself. She doesn’t need me to do that because I taught her to be strong in herself! I taught her to not define herself in what other people think of her. And she does not. She changes for no one. She is who she is, she likes what she likes and for the most part doesn’t care or waiver for anything. Not even for me! Sometimes I wish she would for me but I should be proud that she doesn’t. Sometimes she does waiver to fit in with her friends. I feel for her in those moments because I have spent my life doing that and that is not what I want for her! I want her to be her, even if it hurts my feelings.
How did I teach her to do that when I am not strong in myself? How can I be that strong human I am teaching her to be when I am not that strong human myself? I am proud that she is independent. I love who she is. Sometimes I wish there was less Diva but other times I am so proud of that diva because that Dive protects her when mean girls are mean. And that Diva protects the girl who is getting picked on in a group by my child being the one to stand up to the mean one in the place of the child who is getting picked on or feeling bad when that child is too weak. I am proud of that diva! I pray that when I stifle the diva for my feelings that I don’t stifle the good out of her diva! How was I able to teach her these things? I have no idea how, but I am proud she has learned them!
I am going through yet another identity crisis in parenting, and I don’t even know what it is. I am obviously still her mom and she needs me and I know deep down she wants me around, but she wants me to keep my distance and not over shadow who she is or what she does. I get it! I was there, I may still be there with my mom. When she needs me I will be there. I have seen this happen recently. She does talk to me like a friend sometimes and I to her but she also knows that she must do what she is told and what is expected of her. I don’t really believe in being your child’s best friend until they are adults anyway but sometimes she is mine. She is the only one who can’t leave me and would never think of it, I think… Anyway, I want her to continue to grow in success and keep that diva spunk that will take her far and I just have to get over myself!
Now I have to go watch her solo I am so excited to see her dance! I love watching her on stage and in her element. It is her happy place I am so glad she has dance for that, lord knows she needs a place of her own to just BE. I love her!
#Dance2017
27 Tuesday Sep 2016
Tags
be raw, Be Real, Be You, Close your eyes to feel the music and let it flow through your body, Dance it out, Don't judge you, it's beautiful!
***writers note I started this yesterday, Monday edited and completed Tuesday**
What a great three day weekend (we played hookie today so we all had a three day weekend) To be honest, it was a rough start to our weekend. The Hubs and I had a long “Special Moment” (aka big fight) to start off Saturday then a loss for our PeeWee team made it just a bad day but then was recovered with great friends who are more like family Saturday night. Then it was Seahawks Sunday then we ran into more good friends after the game and then we met up at Great Wolf Lodge Monday with the kids and In-laws. However, I feel shafted because the power went out and we didn’t get that much time in the water park, and then home to a crazy mess of a house. Then, I realized the meat in the fridge that needed to be cooked or thrown away, only $130+ so I had to throw it on the Traeger to salvage it dinners are pre-prepped for the week …I guess. Then it was time for my Adult Modern Dance Class. I was tired and unmotivated, but I knew it would lift me up and rescue the day (not that it was bad, but I was tired).
In Modern, We are working on improving and “feeling” the music without “holding back” or judging our moves. Take up the space, use the floor and dance from within….I SO NEEDED that!!!! I need that in my whole life. Dance overflows totally into life, Thanks Ms X! Dance once again rescued my day and actually without getting to in depth dance really has rescued my life more than once! And then today, flowers from the Hubs to seal the weekend. And better yet we go back to work/school for Tuesday, it won’t be a Monday!
So, Love life! Embrace the positive, ditch the negative. Dance from within. I think dance is the only time in my life maybe the only time I allow myself to be uncensored (when I close my eyes, yes I dance improv with my eyes closed so I don’t judge myself). I am thankful for dance and a class to go to and a teacher who draws out my soul out to put it in my dance. I may one day find if it is ever possible, I may find the real me, with the help of dance probably on stage when I don’t even expect it! I love dance! Dance mimics life and I love dance, my life is a dance. I love my life!
#Dance2016
10 Friday Jun 2016
Tags
Dance Life, Dance Mom, Love My Girl, Passion, Persevere through the hard time, Proud Mom, This is what I pay for!, You Have To Watch The Dance
Today is Dress rehearsal day! The Girl has one dance her ballet dance that they dance with scarves. Her first ever dance onstage was 10 years ago and they danced with scarves it was really reminiscent. I love watching her dance. I thought I saw something special in her that day on stage, but every parent sees something special in their kids on stage at that age!
All I wanted for her was to enjoy it and let it be her fun and her outlet and let her enjoy it! All I wanted was to find what made her heart smile! I think it does, she loves to dance but sometimes dance gets overwhelming and filled with drama and she gets a diva attitude! But onstage she release that energy that captivates me! That captivates her. She is a star! She is my shining star! I don’t know if there really is something special about her, more than being my daughter and a good dancer but I don’t care. There is something special about her. I love to see it I love to watch her dance!
I can’t wait to see where she goes in life she will go far! Maybe on a stage maybe in a classroom but I am thankful for dance giving her the confidence to be great and know when she is great. And for giving her the outlet that she needs to express herself, release frustrations of the drama of being a girl and a great dancer in a pool of good dancers.
I just love watching her dance. I hate seeing some of the logistical things hold her back. I want her to unleash her passion for dance (or whatever outlet she chooses) I want to see when that girl opens up and stops caring what people think about her, I want to see that how amazing will that be. She is one judgemental insecure friend away from that! I wish she could shut to voices out of her brain. She is amazing come watch her dance and you will see. I could not be more proud of who she is and what she can achieve. I just pray for road blocks to be removed from her journey to greatness and that she overcomes the struggle!
I love my Girl!
#Recommit2016
07 Sunday Feb 2016
Posted in Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching
Today was so much fun!!! The Girl danced at convention she rocked it in master classes this morning! Got called out in Jazz Funk, Musical Theatre she has an opportunity to perform in a video or commercial at Nationals, she just danced beautifully today!
Then the second half of the day her team competed group numbers! She was in 5! The got Golds in everything but the finally broke out and got a Platinum in there second to last number! It was a Contemporary number they we gorgeous! I loved it! I loved them all, actually! I always do! Tomorrow we go back bright and early again for one more day. In the morning she has more master classes and she auditions for scholarships that are presented at the wrap party tomorrow.
We stopped at Sonic on our way home like always and the girl and I are heading home to go to bed. Sonic has been a ritual now on our way home from competition. I am exhausted and I haven’t even been dancing! Go Girl!!! Let’s work it and keep this mojo flowing tomorrow!
#Everyday2016
06 Saturday Feb 2016
Posted in Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Love, Raising Kids
Tags
Dance it out, great job, I don't care what color your medal is, I love watching her dance!, Leave it all on the stage, The Girl did great
This evening the girl had her first competition performance of the year! She did great! She was asked how she felt she did after she got off stage and she said she felt really good. She should have it was a great run! However the judges were tough. She got a Gold. Here is how the awards go. They are given are based on their score by percentage. 100-98 is a Titanium, 95-97.99 is Platinum, 90-94.99 is Gold, 80-89.99 is Silver and 79.99 and below is Bronze.
The Girl always tries for a Platinum which used to be the top rank at all competitions. Most Competitions that we attend go Platinum, High Gold, Gold, High Silver and Silver… When she here’s Gold she kind of gets deflated even knowing that at some competitions her Gold from tonight would have been a Platinum. I always try to give her just as many hugs and take as many pictures no matter what color the medal is. She was bummed. By the time I got to her after the awards ceremony she was already taking of her costume and was visibly upset. I told her she should be proud but she wasn’t having it! She did not understand that the scoring system is tough, she moved up in age group category as the judging is tough and there are A LOT of kids in her age group (11-13) all that being considered oh yeah by the way she has a tough dance. She had a couple turns that to an untrained eye looked perfect but to a judge she stepped out of and kind of fell out of a couple turns. Each time that happens judges knock off points and with only 5 points to get down to Gold… There is not a lot of room for error. She really did amazing. I hate this part of competition. She comes out of the awards defining herself by the color of the medal. And it is sad that she feels deflated with a Gold! Gold is pretty damn good!
Last year she got Platinum and this year I am pretty sure she did better performance wise, technically and creatively. She wants to hear that word Platinum!!! It’s like I tell the boy in Wrestling the outcome doesn’t matter, it’s how you feel, how you did not how the other person did or what the judges think. You go out there do your best, leave it all on the mat. For the Girl it is leave it all on the stage. If you don’t ‘win’ you learn! Use that to fuel you to get those turns and for the Boy how to defend that next time.
Honestly the Girl has always usually comes out with her best or highest rank the first competition of the year and maybe she kind of rests on those Laurels so here she can use this to fuel her to prove something…to get those turns right and nail the performance and routine! She truly is amazing, I love watching her perform I want her to feel proud without needing thebjudges to say so. I would love for her to just be able to go out and hit her moves and just know when she has a great performance. To be proud and confident and not care about the score! She mentioned “I want tobget you what you paid for” …..Wait, Hold up! I paid fornyountonjoin perform in stage and be critiqued and to get you seen by other great dancers. I laid for a convention that teaches you how to audition and be confident… I did not pay for your award. I paid for the judges opinion but not for a first place or Platinum. You earn that! But to me today I got to watch my Girl dance to inspire to break through a barrier to teach and interpret a song into movement, to draw emotion and tears from onlookers eyes! She was beautiful, she was passionate and I loved her performance! That was worth my money times 10! How do I teach her THAT is what I pay for!That is why I lay for dance, that is why she dances and she accomplished what she set out for! I could not be more impressed, wait,I will be more impressed next time she goes to rehearsal and worms on this little mistakes and gets her turns and the next competition that she nails! She is beautiful and inspiring I can’t wait to see what the future has for her! Keep up the good work Girl.
To you parents with kids in dance or any activity, help them know we don’t do it for the win! We do not for them to develop passion, to inspire, to grow and to gain confidence!!! For them to learn to always put their beat out there. To leave it all on stage and dance like no one is watching!!! We need to tell our kids that we love watching them dance, that we are proud of their performance and bravery and courage and confidence. We love them as much when they get Platinum or Gold or Silver! Dancers rock inspire and I am proud to be raising one!
#Everday2016
31 Sunday Jan 2016
Posted in Dance, Dance Like No One is Watching, Do Your Thing
Tags
100%, Hard Work beats Talent when Talent doesn't work hard, Hard Work Pays Off, Leave it all on the floor
Today is the first dance convention of the year. And of course, as Murphy’s Law would have it, The Girl is recovering from being sick. Sometimes she gets this “I so sad mommy, rescue me” attitude and slumpiness when she has these long days and is either sick or something. I want her to put 100% energy in and want to work hard. She is currently in a tap class dancing with her hands on her hips! It is so frustrating to see her lack of effort.
Now, I do feel insensitive because she has been sick. And if she has strep throat or pneumonia and here I am saying she needs to try harder I will fell like the worst mom ever. Or she is just tired and looking for me to rescue her. She has to learn at some point in life that people don’t always care about your story. They don’t care that you performed badly at your job because you just had a huge fight with your best friend or that your dog ran away from home or that you have been sick all week! They just care that the job you were supposed to do for them was not done well! The judges don’t know or care if you are sick. If it was an audition for a job you just have to go out there and do your best! If you can muster that energy and perform well, the way you normally do so maybe it’s not as good but the effort is there, then you known you did all you could. You left it all on the floor! You either earn the scores you want but at the very least you know that you got the most out of that performance. If you are putting only partial effort you can be guaranteed you won’t. The judges may know you’ve been sick and don’t care or they will say, “Man there is a lot of talent wasted on the floor right now!” Or “Wow, that girl tried hard, she is sick and you can tell not 100% but her effort showed she wanted it!” You get respect for that! You earn respect for that! You can feel proud for that! You have got to leave it all on the floor!
Always do your best!
#Everyday2016
05 Saturday Dec 2015
Posted in Dance Like No One is Watching, Football, Volunteering
Tags
Happy Show Day!!! I worked a full day at the massage office, then had our dance show, then Volunteer Banquet for Pee Wee Football!
We are now heading for an after party! Apologies for not writing more but my Dance show and dancing at the banquet with biddies has rescued my Fucked day at the office!
Have a good night folks, I will have wisdom and detail tomorrow!
#Everyday2015
Sex Love and Washing Clothes 