Dancing Queen

LC has been taking ballet since September.  They’ve been working toward the big recital for the past nine months and now the time has come!  This is some serious stuff folks.  I guess I didn’t know exactly how serious some of these psycho caring parents are.  LC’s ballet class is one night a week on Thursday.  I can’t complain because it is only one night a week.  In the nine months of observing the behavior patterns of the other parents, you learn some interesting stuff.  Mr. Jeep and I trade off on taking her and due to the pregnancy, I’m not always up for going, so Mr. Jeep is kind enough to do the deed for me.  He’s wonderful!  As usual, the two of us have come up with nicknames for most of the parents (this is what we do when we don’t know someone’s name…doesn’t everyone?).  Here’s a rundown of some of the whackos parents:

Angry Mom:  She has two daughters, one in LC’s class and one in the class after LC’s.  The daughter in LC’s class is probably 3 years old and she is super cute.  But, man, does she give Angry Mom a run for her money.  That 3 year old has figured out which buttons to push on Angry Mom to make her head spin.  Angry Mom is also a teacher, which makes the whole situation that much more scary.

Never on Time Mom:  (she could also be labeled “Needs to Be Counseled on Birth Control Mom) She has three daughters, one of whom is in LC’s class.  The class is only a ½ hour long.  This woman regularly arrives 15 minutes late to class.  At that point, why bother?  Not to mention that her kid has been there maybe a total of 4-5 months out of the 9 months, if that.  She doesn’t work, and proudly states that fact to anyone within ear shot, so why can’t you get your kid there on time?  Plus, she’ll go next door to the pizza place and get herself a slice of pizza and eat it by herself while the other two kids are complaining they’re hungry.  Great parenting.  She’s pregnant with her 4^th (hence the needs to be counseled on birth control).

Stinky Mom:  This is a doozy.  Her kid’s not even in LC’s class, she’s in the following class.  Stinky Mom wore a leather Scooby-Doo jacket all through winter.  Awesome!  I won’t give it justice by attempting to describe it.  It as black with purple and orange and the entire back of it was covered with a giant image of Scooby-Doo.  She’s very scary looking also.  So much so, that I can’t look at her.  It makes me very uncomfortable.  During my first trimester, when every smell or sight of food made me want to hurl, she came in and sat right next to me.  She reeked of cigarette smoke and something else so bad that I thought for sure I was going to blow chow right there.  If there had been more than 5 minutes left of class I would have moved. 

Delinquent Mom/Grandma:  This child is in the class right before LC.  This event happened a couple months ago and I wanted to smack the shit out of Delinquent Mom/Grandma.  I label it Mom/Grandma because I’m not sure which person is the mom and which person is the grandma.  They’re both A1 assholes.  Anyway, the little girl’s class got over and she came out looking for her mom/grandma.  They were nowhere to be found.  The little girl then made her way outside and was standing in the parking lot screaming and crying for her mom/grandma.  Other parents rushed to help her, but the girl was so distraught because no one was there.    Finally Delinquent Mom/Grandma showed up and took her home.  Mr. Jeep told me that apparently the same thing happened last week.  Only this time, Asshole Dad (I’ll get to him in a minute) came to the rescue.  From what Mr. Jeep gathered, Asshole Dad is a neighbor of Delinquent Mom/Grandma (wouldn’t you love to live in their neighborhood?) and called Delinquent Mom/Grandma saying that her daughter was crying uncontrollably because no one was there.  These morons couldn’t wait a ½ hour for their daughter’s class to get over and had to go home.  Someone needs to call Child Protective Services.  As a side note:  Two weeks ago, Delinquent Mom/Grandma had a t-shirt on that said “Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere”.  She’s a gem.

Asshole Dad:  His daughter is in LC’s class.  I’ve never seen the mother.  I’m guessing she’s probably at work when class is going on.  His daughter refuses to stay in the room while class is going on.  She’ll open the door and keep coming out of class, which disrupts the whole class.  He will sit there yelling at her to get back in the room or else.  I’ve never once heard Asshole Dad talk nice to the daughter.  

Disorganized Mom:  Her daughter is in LC’s class.  Most of the time her significant other brings the daughter to class.  This is the only mom whose name I actually know and I have her phone number.  She lives in our neighborhood somewhere.  She’s a very nice person, but just a little odd.  Mr. Jeep and I can’t figure out the relationship between her and the guy that brings the daughter to class.  We have learned recently that he’s not the girl’s dad.  And it appears that there is a significant age difference between Disorganized Mom and her man.  He looks about 15 years younger than her.  I call her Disorganized Mom because she never seems to have her stuff together.  For example, the ballet recital is a two day event – Sunday and Monday.  She never bought tickets!  The parents have to be there and you have to buy a ticket.  The Sunday event sold out, so I’m not quite sure what’s happening there.  Very strange.

The Rest:  The rest of the moms seem like nice enough women.  I have discovered that they’re very cliquey.  I think because I don’t go every week I’m not allowed to be part of the group.  This is fine by me since the closer we get to the recital, the more like stage moms they have become. 

Dress rehearsal is this Thursday.  This is another area that irritates me.  LC has to be at her dress rehearsal at 4:00 p.m. – fully dressed, hair done and all her make-up on.  I get off work at 4:00 p.m.  So I will be leaving work two hours early so that I can pick up LC from my parents’ house, get her dressed, do her hair and make-up.  Apparently it’s no big deal if you’re a working parent.

Throughout this whole adventure I keep reminding myself why we’re here…LC loves ballet.  It is the closest she will get to being a princess and in her world this is the best thing ever.  We will continue to do ballet until LC decides she no longer wants to do it.  I try not to complain in front of her because I don’t want to ruin it for her.  The things we do for our children.