Dance costumes and garbage bags

It's recital week for us at our dance studio and with that comes the craziness of photos and dress rehearsal. Yesterday afternoon, evening and later-evening was spent at the studio for the first of a two-day photo shoot. We don't buy all the photos because to do so would require us to rob a bank and I don't have time to coordinate that right now. But the girls would be really upset to miss being part of each of their class shots so we tough out the long hours to make it work for them. Each of the girls has three costumes and I have another two this year so we needed a crash course on how all the parts of each costume were supposed to be worn. Luckily for us there was a mom at the studio who had this information and got us up to speed just before each photo. But the devil is in the details and keeping track of all those darn little extra costume parts is our biggest challenge every year. Of course there were other moms and girls at the studio with many more costumes than we had so I should not complain about this. But to offer a somewhat lame defense, my girls only perform at recital so they don't have the same kind of organizing practice that the competition team girls do. Unfortunately this year we had detail trouble. We forgot a key piece of one of G.'s costumes. And oh yeah, we forgot to bring bobby pins and hair elastics to make her a bun too. My next lame excuse? I had a busy day at work and made a mad dash to the studio in time for the first group shot so I didn't do a double-check on all the costumes before we threw them in the car. And makeup and hair stuff is not part of my daily life (it's a big day when I get a comb through my hair) so I chronically forget these things for recital pictures. After six years I'd think I could get a handle on this but I miss the makeup/hair boat every year. Thankfully, one of the fabulous moms at the studio made G.'s hair in to a bun in record time (thanks Lynn!) but we weren't sure what to do about the missing costume piece - a black choker neck thingy. Then the studio owner with a lifetime of experience performing and a real knack for being thrifty, came to the rescue. A black garbage bag tie. G. was skeptical but bless her heart, she didn't argue about it. "You won't even be able to tell in the photo. It will blend in with all the others," G. was told. And you know, Ms. Vicky was right! Today we're going to find a ribbon replacement for the neck thingy and make sure we have each costume piece accounted for before dress rehearsal on Friday afternoon, evening, later-evening to maybe midnight. But I know if we fall short of our goal to be better organized, someone at the dance studio will come to our rescue with some ingenious idea.