Category Archives: television

next time on dance moms who only wish they could dance

Posted on by
1

Those legs…yeah, she gets them from me. As you can see, Jodie is doing well in pointe…and as I can see she has ripped yet another pair of tights…of the six pairs I just bought her. Does she pull them on with her teeth? Perhaps she did it to distract me from the dance mom craziness.

I like to think that we are nothing like those moms on those Dance Moms and Dance Moms Miami faux-reality shows that, yes, have become a bit of a guilty pleasure for Jodie and me. Hey, it’s mother-daughter bonding time all cuddled up together on the couch watching and (can you believe it) talking…talking about the show, the young dancers, the dances, the competitions, the crazy dance moms and instructors and just talking together. Bill sometimes joins in…usually grumbling about how he can’t believe we watch this crazy crap..except that one time he really took offense to the weight restrictions and weigh-ins one studio apparently does.

“They don’t do THAT to Jodie do they?”

“No honey, they don’t.”

“They better not. I mean it. My daughter better not be stepping on no scale… Why do they do it anyway?”

Jodie tries to explain that some studios do have such rules in place as do many dance companies and professional dance teams but Bill still has such a hard time with it muttering that his daughter better not ever be subjected to that and something about the size of the lady who was having the kids step on the scale.

“Honey, I promise you. She doesn’t get weighed in. Look at your daughter. Do you honestly think she would ever be weight restricted?”

“Well she better not ever step on a scale.”

“She won’t.”

But really such hysteria would never happen in my kid’s dance studio or on her dance team…or would it??!!

Jodie’s ripping her tights on purpose to distract me. I just know it.

So I will keep my head down, focus on replacing the tights, getting my tickets for the end of year recital that is coming in three weeks and focus on the last two competitions this weekend and in July and let the studio owner and coach worry about the bat-shit dance mom drama happening all around her. The last thing she needs is my kind of crazy jumping in.

Well, except for me to just go there and address one particular dance mom crazy (you know who you are), “SHAME ON YOU!!! Good riddance to you too!”

But next year might be different.

Guess who was invited to audition for the 2012-2013 competition team?

Oh dear…mother -daughter crazy dance moms just might be coming your way.

Congratulations Hazel and good luck baby girl!

a new pet

Posted on by

“Mommy can I take him home? PLEASE!?”

Looks like Jodie found her man…and got his autograph…and talked to him…and danced with him…and took LOTS of pictures with him.

I imagine a restraining order will be next.

But seriously, it was a great dance convention and competition. Hollywood Vibe always does that right. Kent will be glad to hear that his contemporary jazz workshop was one of her favorites. He really is not only a very talented dancer but a pretty impressive choreographer and teacher…so says my .dancer.

Meanwhile, I’m shaking my head wondering what is it about my daughters and sweet, talented, cute reality TV stars.

stalking to the beat

Posted on by

A word of warning to Kent Boyd:

She’s coming! She’s coming to a weekend of dance workshops and competition near you. Did you hear the squealy, giggly screams coming from here in the Central Valley last night when it was confirmed that you would be teaching and performing at Hollywood Vibe this weekend? I would be really surprised if you didn’t hear them. She loves you, dude and has followed your career ever since Nigel got lost somewhere in the middle of Ohio trying to find your house to tell you that you were in Season 7 of So You Think You Can Dance. Don’t be afraid though, Kent. She’s harmless. Really, she is. Well except for when she is burning up the dance floor in her tap routines.

Ready or not, Kent, here we come!

how to impress a three year old

Posted on by

Provide proof that Santa shops at Target.

True story, Hazel was very impressed with this fact. I think Santa has gained extra awesome points in her book.

And now when I rush around like a mad woman doing last minute shopping because, hurray, payday is the day before Christmas Eve, I shall have the Carol of the Bells on a continuous loop running through my head.

Now wasn’t that an amazing run on sentence!

adoption drama

Posted on by

It would seem that in the land of television their is much adoption drama going on this season…on Glee, on Parenthood and on Modern Family and the social media and blogging world is a bit freaked out.

Two seasons ago on Glee, Quinn Fabray so easily births a baby girl and walks away with the baby safe in the arms of her adoptive mom with nary a tear or emotional outburst of grief and the collective world freaks out because that is not real…or at least the reality of those who have birthed a baby and placed the child for adoption.

But it is just a television show…with singing and dancing.

The next season the character Quinn returns to her perfect head cheerleader life and Puck goes back to being a thug with a heart of gold with no mention of what they both went through the school year before and again there is freaking out because again that is not how it happens.

Still it is a television comedy/drama with even more singing and dancing.

Parenthood opens this season with Julia and her husband struggling with secondary infertility and their decision to adopt. Julia’s character, being the control freak who scarcely breathes that she is, tries to micro-manage even this part of their family life because that is how her character has been for the last two seasons of the television show. She even blurts out to Zoey, the single and pregnant coffee cart girl in her office, that she wants to adopt her baby and again the world practically bursts a vessel.

Still it is just a television show.

Zoey, Latte Girl, explains to Julia that she doesn’t want to place her baby with someone she knows. She wants a closed adoption. Again, the world freaks and declares that this is not real. No one does closed adoptions and walks away like a Juno. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Um…it’s a televison drama…it’s not reality.

Then back to Glee, Shelby returns. First she must meet with Rachel to reach out to her and make amends for walking away after placing her with Rachel’s Dads years ago and rejecting Rachel reaching out to her two seasons ago.

Oh no…

Shelby is also seeking to have Quinn and Puck be a part of Beth’s life as her biological parents saying she doesn’t want them to have the same regrets that she has.

Yup, there is freaking out all over the place.

Still I keep shaking my head muttering this is a television show.

But in spite of how I feel I have to confess that this week’s episode of Glee did kind of touch on a nightmare of mine that I had for a few years. The first three years or so of Daniel’s life I dreamt that his bio parents returned wanting him back…demanding him back. Of course in my dream I am the one freaking out. The dream never resolved because I would always wake up as I was screaming at them that they didn’t deserve him.

I know. Bad adoptive mom! Shame on me!

But our family’s adoption experience doesn’t so neatly fit into a one hour weekly television drama series. Nor does it even remotely reflect your typical adoption experience…open or closed or otherwise. Social workers involved in our case back in the day told us they had never, ever had a case like ours. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all bad. It’s all for good. After all, how fortunate we are to have Daniel in our lives? How lucky our family is to be completed by this remarkable child? I will never understand the thinking that brought his bio parents to the decision that they made. Still I am forever grateful for their choice. Anytime Daniel and I talk about the fact that he is adopted I always touch on the truth of how blessed we are that he is our son. He tells me that the reason why he had to be born 16 weeks early was so he could meet his mommy…yes, me.

See? I’m the lucky one!

As I watch the television dramas unfolding on Tuesday night I’m reminded of the fact that no adoption experience is the same…certainly never, ever like what is depicted in a television show…just as no parenting or family experience is the same. But then again, whose to say that some of these writers are NOT writing from their own experiences…from their own perspectives? I mean, if no adoption experience is the same as yours or yours or mine whose to say what they are writing doesn’t reflect their truths?

Hmmm…..

Nevertheless,  while people in the world around me are screaming to reject these shows because they don’t get adoption right, I imagine that I will continue to watch and see how the stories do play out because I kind of like these television comedies and dramas.

That’s entertainment.