Kaylee and I worked in the dressing room at the recital last night. I've already posted about the challenges in this situation but last night was a new low in trying to do a good thing and getting your head on the chopping block for the trouble.
Excitement is high in those dressing rooms for performance night. And no one has a higher excitement level than the mother of a 4 - 5 or 6 year old dancing on stage for probably the first time. You would think that they were all raising a potential Hannah Montana instead of normal little girls who most of the time could not care less. What the kids know is that they are bored, hungry, thirsty, in need of a potty trip and just downright tired.
One particularly Diva Mom showed up at about 10 minutes to curtain with her child not dressed and no appropriate stage hairdo. She promptly announced that her daughter did not have her costume hat and she had no idea how to put the child's hair in a bun. Fortunately for her, Kaylee had found the hat on dress rehearsal night in spite of the fact that the woman chewed her down to the bone because the little girls "ears" fell off during the ballet routine. Of course the woman had not bothered on that night to make sure she included bobby pins with her child's wardrobe, but it was Kaylee's fault all the same. So Kaylee managed to wrestle the child's hair into a quick little loose bun which did not last the night because of no hair product to "glue" it with.
One little group of girls did not dance at all until after intermission and their level of boredom, frustration and exhaustion made them cranky and whiny.
Kaylee spent the entire evening leading groups of little girls to the "potty" and I'm sure a lot of them went just to have something to do.
One innovative mother brought a 3 gal size container of Goldfish crackers which promptly were dropped and spilled and ground into the carpet of the room we were in. Said room had to be cleaned up by us after recital - what FUN! And the little girls in that group insisted those crackers were just for their group which caused all the other kids to whine and cry. Thanks Mom - those crackers were a great help.
Then we had the legions of people who felt the need to stroll in and out of the room visiting dancers and standing around chatting with each other while 3 workers were trying desperately to get little girls in and out of costumes. And all the children who had decided that it was okay for their mothers to not be there and we truly weren't going to throw them out the window, became whiny and needy and suddenly didn't want "mommy" to leave. Come on people once an evening is enough of this - keep your ass in the audience where it belongs. Sorry for the language but I am truly hacked on this subject.
The hip hop girls did not disappoint - they flipped and ran, kicked and swirled, hopped and spun and eventually injured at least a couple of the little girls causing tears, pleas for "mommy" and required holding for a time.
But the highlight of my evening happened during intermission when it looked like feeding day at the zoo. Everyone and their dogs felt the need to stroll in and out, visiting, snapping photos and just in general getting in the way.
Please remember the 3 of us that were working were specifically tasked with making sure some strolling pervert did not manage to get their hands on a child and leave with them.
There were 3 women standing by one door talking and the door opened and a little girl made a break for the door. I saw her and ran (as quickly as I'm able) over to the door and caught her and said "Baby, you can't go out into the hallway." There were literally hundreds of people milling around in the hallway at this time. One of 3 lovely women standing there snapped at me "That is MY child." To which I replied, "Okay, but she's not supposed to leave the room unattended." "Well, she's my child and you don't have the right to tell her what to do." I said "Ma'am, first of all - I had no idea she was your child and surely you would not want me to allow YOUR child to go running out into a hallway packed with people unattended." "She's my child." was her response. Okay......this is a new one on me - I've been reprimanded for trying to keep a child safe.
This is why people don't volunteer for things anymore. Instead of "Oh thank you for watching these children so carefully." I got my butt chewed. Leaving me no choice but to state "No good deed goes unpunished."
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