Thursday nights!

No world of lie, I hate taking my kid to dance class.  I hate it so much, it makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.

You may be asking yourself, "why would she hate this activity so much, it's just dance class, it's just taking your kid to do something he loves to do, it innocent fun".  There is nothing worse than dance class...for so many reasons.

I have to describe the building.  You come in the front door, where you are greeted, well not always greeted, but the first Thursday of the month you are told "you must check in, YOU MUST ALWAYS CHECK IN"  this is yelled to you as you enter because money is paid on the first of the month.  Well not for me, we paid the whole miserable thing last month so I say, "I don't need to check in".  As you walk past the front desk you walk down a hall.   At the end of the hall you turn right to walk down a even longer hall and at the end of the hall is a room, where chairs are lining the walls, and there are toys...lots of toys.  Zeb's dance room is off of this large room.

Whenever I enter this building I am hit, like a brick, with the smell of a combination of sweat, perfume, sugar, coffee, and sometimes, but not all the time popcorn.  That smell follows you as you make your way down the first hall.  You have to watch where you walk, as there are children, backpacks, toys, books, water jugs, cans of pop, coffee cups, coats, clothes, shoes, siblings and anything else one may think makes sense to bring to dance class.  The walls are lined with chairs, there are people sitting on every third or forth chair, but all the chairs are taken with all those things listed that are also on the floor.

You never have a clear way to walk, as there is always, ALWAYS someones kids running down the hall screaming, or little toddlers walking, or various other family members of dancers playing games in the walk way.  It is one major dangerous place to try to walk, even on the best of days.

I don't stay in the building long, just long enough for Zeb to get into his class and then I leave.  I either sit in my car outside, or I do a couple of quick errands.  This is not the place any normal person would want to hang out.

The parents there are just very unique.  They bring every single child they have, even if they are 13 and can stay at home by themselves.  They think that it's okay to let their badly behaved children run the hallways, break the toys, draw on the walls, kick the walls, bang all their toys on the walls, take up three chairs with all their crap, and eat everywhere.  All over the floor you see spilled Cheerios's, juice boxes, candy, milk etc.  It is one big sticky mess.  The craziest thing about these parents is what they bring their kids to eat while they are taking there 3 or 4 dance classes that night.

All over the place you see girls mostly coming out of rooms to get  a drink and a bit to eat.  Their parents hand them water or juice and then they follow that up with sugar, or some sort of carb...like bagels or croissant rolls.....in fact this past week I watched a rather chunky girl (who I feel really bad for because I know if things don't change in her life really soon she will end up with weight issues her whole life) filling her face with a bag of croissant rolls just as I was standing there the 5 minutes while waiting on Zeb's class.  This poor girl, who didn't need another carb, but sure could use some cut up veggies, didn't want to go to dance class after eating the bag away, by then she was tired and just wanted to stay on the floor.  Her mother, not using her inside voice, loudly told her she had to get off the floor and get to class she was late. 

I'm thinking, why do I come here every week.  These people are crazy.

After waiting outside for the 45ish minutes I come in to get Zeb.  This isn't nearly as bad as the drop off as I don't have to do much, just change his shoes, get his coat on and off we go. 

Are all dance studio's like this, as I know we are in for a lifetime of dance classes, but I don't look forward to doing this every week.