In my post last Wednesday:"Dance Competitions", I mentioned how stressed out I was about my daughter's upcoming dance competition. Well, it turns out I wasn't stressed out enough! Things were even worse than I expected!
The first thing I mentioned I was stressed about was the hotel. The competition was running early the first day, which is a great thing, but that meant we were too early to check-in the hotel. So, we had to wait about 45 minutes before we could check in. Meanwhile, a dance dad came in and they let him check in right away! Luckily, this time I figured out how everything worked in the hotel, so that was good. The really awful thing that happened though, was at 4:00 in the morning I smelled smoke. I looked around and didn't see any fire, so I thought maybe someone down below was sneaking a cigarette. Well, a minute later, the fire alarm sounded! My daughter and I grabbed our glasses, my purse, and cell phone, and we headed down 5 flights of stairs to the lobby in our p.j.s and socks. I wondered why no one else was madly rushing down the stairs with us, but we kept going. When we got downstairs, there was no employee in sight, so I started loudly saying, "Hello, my fire alarm is going off." An employee appeared and asked us if we were next to room 519. I said yes, and she said he just called to say he burned his bagel in the microwave. There weren't any maintenance guys around, so if we wanted our fire alarm to shut off, I would have to unplug it myself! Of course I couldn't reach it, so I was just about to knock on Mr. 519's door, when he came out and offered to unplug our alarm. Of course, who could sleep after that, plus our room still smelled. I opened the window and turned on the fan, but it took awhile for the smell to go away.
The next stressor I mentioned was the GPS. It actually got us where we needed to go almost always. We saw a Wendys near the church we went to Sunday morning, so at lunch, we looked it up on the GPS. Well, we ended up at city hall, not Wendys! Apparently the Wendys we saw wasn't the one the GPS found and the one the GPS found, obviously didn't exist!
Next, I mentioned doing my daughter's hair and makeup and waiting for her tights order. I did her hair o.k., but her fake eyelashes were very hard to get on, and stay on. Every time I looked at her, another part of the eyelash was coming off, so I just stopped looking! The tights did come in time, and they fit!
Next, was the costumes. One arrived on Thursday and the other two on Friday. Luckily they fit, but at the competitions we found out some adjustments we needed to make. We had to pin the skirts on one costume, and a sash on another. Luckily, one costume was just right.
One thing I didn't mention as a stressor was the weather. Well, unfortunately, it was pouring! The second day I couldn't find parking, so I dropped my daughter off at the front so she could find someone to help me park. She never came back. So, I put my hazard lights on, turned off the car, and ran inside sobbing about parking and my disappearing daughter. One mom ran off to find my daughter, and another mom and the studio co-owner came out to park my car. That was very kind of them. On our way home, there were four accidents because of the rain! One time we even came to a complete stop on the freeway for about 15 minutes!
So, my daughter and I both decided we don't like competitions! We've invested a lot of money in it, so we need to have a family discussion this week about quitting or having my husband attend competitions with us. I will let you know what we decide.Labels: My Kids