So This Is What It's Come Down To....

....a blog post a month, eh?

Yeah. Take my blogger card away right now.

OK in my defense it has been a crazy month and the fact that it is May 12 has just raised my stress level a little bit.

This weekend is dance recital weekend, also known as Dance Mom Hell. Sure it's exciting for the kids with the hair and the makeup and the costumes. But for the moms it's excruciatingly painful with the hair and the makeup and the costumes.

Last week was the end of my patience with the kids' dance studio when one of the instructors told the parents (IN FRONT OF THE KIDS) that if they didn't get a "backstage mom" the girls wouldn't be allowed to dance. At all.

So basically it was a flat-out threat that the thousands of dollars paid by parents and grandparents would be a total waste unless someone "stepped up" and volunteered as tribute for the Dance Mom Hunger Games.

The part that pissed me off most? Telling us in front of the girls. Seven and eight-year-old kids who worked so hard all year to learn this dance. Emma told me that night how mad she was when the teacher said they might not dance.

And that is just ONE of the reasons we're leaving that dance studio at the end of this week. Forever.

In other non-dance news...the kids have 16 days of school left (not counting weekends, obviously). And I'm reaching that end-of-the-school-year breaking point where I'm tempted to just throw Pop Tarts and bottled water in their lunch boxes and ignore the homework. (I said I was tempted. I'm not actually doing that.)

I'm one burned out mama. But we still have a 6th grade parent meeting this week (OMG!), Career Day next week (and I'm talking about Disney), Field Day, and the last day of school 5th grade party where I'm probably going to cry my eyes out.

And then?

Then we pack up the car and drive to the OBX and I sit on the beach for a week drinking fruity drinks and watching the waves. That's when I exhale.

Happy almost end of the school year to you!