Dance Weekend #1

I survived.  That's about the best statement I can make regarding La Nina's first dance convention of the year.   For her, the weekend included 9 hour long dance classes covering tap, ballet, jazz and hip hop. She also participated in her first audition for a scholarship.  Her audition group contained girls 6-10, so the card were stacked against her and she was immediately eliminated.  A couple of girls also eliminated cried, but not mine.  She was furious the judges didn't see her skills.  Then her team competed and did great for so early in the season.   

For me, the weekend was a bit like spending 8 hours a day for straight two days in a dentists' waiting room in an uncomfortable chair listening to really loud music and small girls shrieking.  Can you say sensory overload?  I recommend the military use dance conventions as opposed to water boarding to coerce confessions from suspected terrorists.  Trust me, for men, a full confession to anything will occur within the first four hours of convention life.  

The best part of convention related activities occurred listening to the convention director give a parent talk.  He was a flamboyant former dancer, choreographer, quite entertaining.  The talk over all was geared more to parents of teenagers, but given I have a child who tells me "She loves, loves, loves dance" after 9 straight hours of it, I figured I better be paying attention, 'cuz you just never know.  Anyway, I chuckled when he gave a piece of advice that could have come from my conservative father in law would whole-heartedly embrace.  

"What ever you do," he said, "Teach your young children, especially your daughters to say their names with great confidence and look grown ups in the eye. It's an important life skill, they need to learn it young."  (Add the firm handshake and I think that's I've heard that same thing over dinner.) 

The other thing I learned this weekend is parents who put their kids in dance for any other reason than the fact their kids love it are crazy.  These weekends are tough.  

Too Much Help

Tonight, I packed for a dance competition La Nina and I will be attending for the next couple of days in San Francisco.  We're taking BART, so we need to pack light.  She'll be dancing for 4-6 hours a day, so we need lots of food and she'll also be competing which means we need her dance costume, her make up, her hair stuff, etc.  The night was going like this:Two new pairs of tight (check), company necklace and earrings (check), hair nets (check), you get the picture.

Since I keep most items in La Nina's, her dance bag was open on the bed and she was perched on a stool with my list and a pen, reading me items.  At one point, I left the room to get bobby pins or safety pins or some other dance requirement and when I walked back into the room, she'd emptied her nearly full bag on the floor. 

"Uh....what are you doing?"  I asked.  

"Helping," she answered brightly.

"But I just that stuff in there.  Why did you take it out?"  Now you have to know, I'm fighting very hard to maintain a neutral voice.  The Magster is also standing in our play shopping cart, pretending its a surf board and singing "Best of Both Worlds" at the top of her lungs into a play microphone that distorts her voice horribly.  

"I just wanted to see everything,"  she says over her sister's roar. 

I pick up the Magster to keep her from killing herself and set her on the floor. Without missing a note, she launches into "Fabulous".  "But I'm putting things in there that we need to take.  If you take them out, then they could get lost, so please don't do that."  

"Momma, I putting it all back, see?"  she said.  

The problem was I couldn't see and frankly I couldn't think courtesy of the Magster fabulous serenade.  I still have no idea if she got everything back into the bag.  The reason?  She marked up my list so bad I can no longer read it.  So, may be we have everything...may be we don't.  At least I should be able to find a drug store open in the city if we forget anything.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Last Wednesday, the Dad and I had the joy of sitting through two parent teacher conferences.  I personally believe I should never be surprises during these meetings.  One, I do homework with our kids every week, so from that alone, I see their progress, strengths and struggles.  And two, I check in with their teachers from time to time.  Also, I expect the teachers to let me know if there's a struggle, long before I see it on a report card.  

First up was Maggie.  It was hard to decide whether or not to start her so young in an "academically rigorous" program.  (They call it that because of the Spanish.) So- I worry about her.  Every time I ask Maggie about school, she shakes her head and says, "Oh Mom, it's so hard.  Just so hard."  However, when it comes time for homework, she flies through it. I was curious going into the meeting.  The only thing I'd heard from the teacher was that she was very chatty in class, but I suspect I'll hear that about Maggie for the rest of her life, because she is chatty.  Very chatty.  Turns out we had no worries, she's doing just fine despite being the youngest English speaking kid in her year.  As the teacher put it, her "artistic sensibilities" help her tremendously whether it's picking up a song, memorizing rhymes or creating an elaborate pattern.    

Then came La Nina aka Little Miss Intensity. The hard part of La Nina's school work now is she must meet the 1st grade standards in English and Spanish.  So, if the standard says kids must identify all their shapes, and your kid misses a shape in Spanish, they miss the standard, regardless whether or not they can identify the shape in English.  The amazing part to me is La Nina does fine in either language.  Apparently, she sometimes forgets her 70's when counting to 100 by 5's, but please...she's 6, counting to 100 by five in two languages.  If she forgets 70's occasionally in her non-native language, I'm proud she got all the other numbers in, 'cuz I couldn't tell you how to say 95 in Spanish to save my life. 

  

The Dad and I ended conference day feeling very fortunate to have two such good kids and we can only hope that all our conference days go so well.    

Whew! We Survived Family Day

Well, yesterday was Maggie's fourth family day.  It's so hard to believe she's with us 4 years.  Wasn't it just yesterday that wild thang was placed in our arms?  On the other hand, was there ever a day this child wasn't with us?  Seems like she's always been here.  I'd like to say we spent an entire day watching our old China videos, telling her adoption stories and spoiling her.  But alas, that isn't true.  See, her family day fell on the last day of soccer season and the first day of dance season.  So, we had a few things going on.  

The day started at 8:20 when we flew out of the house for our first soccer game, we got to the field, warmed up, played a game, jetted home so I could change out of my coaching gear, then raced back to the field for La Nina's game.  La Nina played her game and I greeted her on the sideline so she and I could dash to Livermore for a dress rehearsal for her first dance competition of the year.  After stripping her out of her soccer uniform, flinging a dance costume onto her body, putting her hair into a bun and applying some make up, she danced with her team.  Her dance went poorly, so the director had the team run it twice more.  It went better the second and third time but the director decided the costumes were unworkable, so we turned in our costumes, put our soccer uniform back on, then headed to La Nina's end of the year soccer party.  After playing a few video games, receiving her first trophy and eating cupcakes, we headed home for Maggie's family day celebration.  When we got home, of course, the Magster had to open presents (nothing major), then it was time for dinner, so we headed to her favorite Mexican place (Chinese is SO done on Family Days), then we came home to watch Maggie's favorite movie: High School Musical.  

Or may be I should say the girls watched the movie.  I fell asleep as soon as I sat down.  Gee I wonder why?  Happy Family Day, Maggie!  We're so glad on November 15, 2004 you joined our family.  

November

November used to be such a great month.  The holidays were beginning.  Good food filled the refrigerators.  A four day weekend capped off the feasting.  Now, for whatever reason, November has become a month when the kids don't go to school. 

Yes, it's only the 12th and the kids only have three full days of school left between now and December 1.  Seventeen full days between now and Christmas break, but who's counting?  Why?  I wish I knew.  

Next week there's parent teacher conferences so La Nina only goes for half days.  Unfortunately, it's not the same part of the day as Maggie goes, so that means my daily "alone" time is 1 hour for three days next week. Needless to say, I won't be freelancing for anyone next week.  Then next Friday, the kids have the day off, followed Thanksgiving break.  Yep, Thanksgiving now merits its own week off.  I'm sure they give us Thanksgiving off to protect their funding.  Many people travel that week, so the school loses out on funding.  Therefore, they give us the week off to save money.

It's always struck me as ironic that if we take our kids out to go on vacation, they make us feel guilty.  "We lose funding" they cry.  Yet, the schools can put us on any crazy schedule they want and we have to adapt.  For me, it's fine.  The folks I feel for are working parents.  I'm not sure how they make all this work.  

  

The Rest of the Story

There was a little more to the Toys R' Us visit than I mentioned in my last post.  As the girls and I were leaving the store, only one register in the gaming section was open, and a couple of employees pointed us to the cordoned off area where video games, Nintendos and Wii's are sold.  

Just inside the area there was a large screen playing game images of soldiers at war.  This included guns being fired, realistic looking people being shot and explosions with bodies hurtling through the air.  Of course, the girls were completely mesmerized by it and I was furious.  This game was recommended only for kids over 14, yet here were my kids getting a free sneak peek. 

So, I protested to the guy behind the counter.  His answer, "Oh, corporate tells us what to show on that, I can't change it."  

I asked him to turn it off.  He couldn't.  I asked him to turn down the volume.  He couldn't do anything.  Corporate was the problem, he wouldn't let his little kids see such things either.

Then, much to my children's dismay, I went ballistic.  "It's a local management decision to only open this register," I started, "and therefore, it's a local management decision to expose my children to this crap, so call your manager NOW!"  

While my children pretended not to know me, the manager came over, apologized and opened another register for me in the bank of 10 registers that sat dark in the middle of the store.  However, there was a problem.  The cashier didn't know how to use any of these registers.  Seriously, it took him 20 minutes to figure out how to ring me out.  By the time I left, I was beyond annoyed.  

Think about it, showing a teen game to little kids is the equivalent of showing them a sex scene from a PG13 movie.  Would this ever be acceptable?  Of course not.  But, for some reason, shooting and killing is okay.  Isn't that warped?  And even odder, the guy first acted like I was nutty when I started complaining.  I know for a fact that neither of my kids had ever seen something like that, and frankly, I don't want them to see that stuff for as long as I can avoid it.  I have no problem with the ad, but I don't think it should be near the entrance where little kids are likely to see it.  It should be in the back, where the big kids can go find it.  'Cuz let's face it, the intended audience will find it anywhere it's place.

So, now I'm fighting my little crusade against the evil empire of Toys R' Us.  I've fired off an email that supposedly was forwarded to "corporate".  I doubt it will get far, so be warned.  If you're opposed to your kids seeing violence, don't go into the gaming section at Toys R' Us.

  

Halloween Candy Disappears into Thin Air

Halloween was a ghoulishly good time and the kids scored more candies than a vampire at midnight in a blood bank.  But this year, I changed the game on them.  All weekend long they were allowed to eat whatever candy they wanted, whenever they wanted.  Maggie even had Peanut Butter Cups and milk for breakfast on Saturday.  I cringed as I passed her the milk. 

Last night when La Nina was sick of chocolate, I offered them $10 each for all of their candy.  The deal:  if I bought the candy, then it was mine, not theirs anymore.  La Nina agreed readily, Maggie just sort of went along, but she warmed up to the idea when I agreed to take her to Toys R' Us today.  

Tonight we ran over to Toys R Us, where the two girls shopped til they dropped.  They each brought their wallets, so they had more than the proceeds from their candy sales.  It was great.  I got tons of ideas for Christmas, they both spent a few bucks on toys and the Halloween candy is gone from our lives forever.  And the funny thing is:  Neither kid asked for candy once all day.