On Monday, Caroline endured her last dance class because this Sunday is the recital, which will most likely go down in history as “The Mother’s Day that I Paid Hundreds of Dollars for a Beating”, because I feel pretty certain this whole experience will basically serve the purpose of me being able to watch my daughter daydream on stage, twirl and jump for a few minutes to the music she hears in her head, and then perhaps pick her nose for an encore.
At least we have ruled out ballerina as a future career choice at a young age. It will give us much more time to prepare her for a career in nuclear physics or professional worm digging.
Anyway, at the end of the dance class on Monday, the teacher called all the mamas into the classroom to go over a few last minute recital details and to push us to buy t-shirts for $15.00 that say “Dance Recital”.
As if.
It seems that Caroline’s teacher is living in some delusional fantasy world and is not aware that she has been teaching a class of 3 year olds all year long. She kept making references to helping them focus and whether or not we’re allowed to bring them bouquets of flowers to present to them as they come off stage. I have a sneaking suspicion there are some mamas who are taking this a lot more seriously than I am.
I’m not even sure what time we’re supposed to be there on Sunday, but I knew if I raised my hand and asked, I would be completely ostracized from the Britney Spears Stage Mother Association.
They were all talking about the various makeup they had purchased for their daughters to wear, and there was much concern over whether their daughters’ hair should be curled or not. And finally, when someone started to discuss whether or not we should pencil in their eyebrows after we apply their mascara, it took everything in me not to stand up and yell, “You people need to get a grip on reality”.
However, the teacher did insist that all the little ballerinas need to wear makeup so that they’ll show up on stage, and I certainly don’t want Caroline to not show up. If she is going to dance to the beat of her own drummer, then I guess the least I can do is attempt to put some lipstick on her.
So, today I went to HEB and strolled the cosmetics aisle looking for the cheapest makeup I could find. One of the dance mothers mentioned that her Mary Kay lady had put together a great makeup package for the recital for just $40.00. Seriously? There is no way my 3 year old is going to have a better makeup bag than I do.
I headed to the Cover Girl section and picked up some lavender eye shadow because I’m just too frightened by the blue eyeshadow. It is my belief that most of the evil in the world can be traced back to blue eyeshadow. If you don’t believe me, then just watch a rerun of Dynasty.
I also found some pink blush and a tube of red lipstick. When Caroline saw the makeup and I told her it was for the recital, it was the first time she has shown any real enthusiasm for this entire event. There is nothing she likes more than to coat her face with any type of lipstick she can find, especially if we’re about to walk out the door to go to church and are already running 10 minutes late.
When we got home, I decided to do a trial makeup run. I had her sit as still as she ever sits, while she scrunched up her entire face as I tried to apply eyeshadow, blush and some lip color to her actual lips. The thing that got me was the smell of the Cover Girl makeup. It immediately transported me back to junior high and those first experimental days of applying makeup and then taking it off with Noxema.
I’ll never forget that my Home Economics teacher had a Merle Norman consultant come in to teach us all about applying makeup. The consultant had some kind of contest and I won this handheld vanity mirror that opened up to reveal eyeshadows in every shade of the rainbow. It was glorious. Nevermind that I never learned how to sew in Home Ec, I was the recipient of the most wondrous eyeshadow collection ever assembled.
It was the Time/Life Soft Rock Classics Collection of the eyeshadow world.
Every morning I would get up and choose my outfit for the day. Then, for the crowning touch I would open up my Merle Norman eyeshadow mirror and apply whatever color matched my clothes. Blue Izod? Blue eyeshadow. Purple argyle vest? Purple eyeshadow. Green Polo? Green eyeshadow. And most unfortunately, yellow sweater? Yellow eyeshadow.
I was committing cosmetic heresy every single morning and was proud.
So proud.
I’m not sure when I realized it wasn’t always in the best interest of natural beauty to match my eyeshadow to my wardrobe selection, but I’ll tell y’all this, when I saw Caroline today, with the purple eyeshadow on, I knew for sure that I made the wrong decision on that day back in 7th grade when I matched my eyes to my purple argyle vest.