Personal Day

April 2022 – With things back to mostly normal in the dance world in many parts of the country, 3-day (or even 4-day) competition weekends are back! And while most of us are thrilled that it is, that means that working dance moms need to make some changes to their schedules to accommodate the longer stretches. One such mom is me; while I’m glad we don’t have to do the whole block scheduling thing right now, being done with your entire weekend in a four-hour window was pretty sweet. I’ve had to take two personal days so far this year to make everything work (I HATE taking off at all). But it’s all for the kids, right?

September 2020 – In 2020, most of us competition dance families were in the same boat. We were gearing up for our season, or were in the middle of it, when the world shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic.  As the days dragged into weeks, and the weeks dragged into months, it became clear that the 2020 season (or what was left of it) was forever lost.   Our dancers felt a sense of loss and despair, and we dance moms found ourselves nursing emotional wounds that could not be easily healed. There were no solutions, no real answers to be had, so all we could do was encourage our dancers to look for the silver lining in the cloud. But it was often difficult to find something positive among all the negatives, and we found ourselves longing for the days of quick changes and early call times.

Recently, some states have begun to ease safety restrictions and allowed businesses to open back up (albeit to a lesser degree than before covid-19). Here in New Jersey, we were fortunate to compete in August in an outdoor competition (Starpower’s Battle Under the Big Top at Harrah’s in Atlantic City). It felt amazing to see my girls up on stage again; they were positively glowing throughout and after the day, and they excitedly chatted about the possibility of the September competition we were scheduled for actually going through.  I didn’t want to dampen their spirits, so we adopted a wait-and-see attitude. 

As of this writing, our competition is still scheduled to be a go for this coming weekend. It was optional for our dancers, but I jumped at the chance to have my girls perform their solos again. However, I failed to consider one possible wrinkle.  What I hadn’t thought of (at the time) was that the event might begin on Friday. When I realized this, I rationalized that it probably wouldn’t be an issue; after all, the odds of that happening were about one in three, right?  The odds were in my favor, or so I thought…

I should have known better. We got our schedule just today, and of course we have a Friday afternoon performance time. My initial reaction was just like Hide the Pain Harold’s here; just a few seconds before, I was happy to take a peek.  But when I put two and two together, I froze. The venue is over an hour away; with hair and makeup prep, packing, traveling, warming up, and all that jazz, the competition will consume the better part of the day.

For many dance moms, that may pose no problem whatsoever. Either they are stay-at-home mothers or they have jobs with enough accumulated leave time that one day is not going to significantly impact them. However, there are some of us that are in a less than ideal situation. I am a teacher, currently working from home. So now, in addition to the new dynamic of unfamiliar technology and putting on a daily show via live video conferencing, I now have to think about how to make it work without calling the shots myself.   And just for kicks and giggles, my son has a commitment at the same time the competition is scheduled for. Guess I have to call in the cavalry to make the day work for the whole family.

I suppose it’s a fairly small price to pay for the chance to see my girls light up the stage again.  I’m sure that, when all is said and done, I’ll be glad I made the decision to take a personal day. 

Work hard, have fun! – Danielle

Getting your kid ready to take the stage is no picnic; it can be a Hair-Raising Experience!