Encouragement

Being a dance mom is not for the faint-hearted. It becomes something that will take over your life before you even realize it has happened. Growing up as a dancer myself I understood what it took to be a dance mom; but to the women that have come into this world blindly, I commend you for your bravery and hope you decide to stay with us. What it takes: - 15+ hours a week of dance practice - $ thousands of dollars in costumes, competition & choreography fee's - Travel across state lines - Tears (SO MANY TEARS.. happy and sad tears) - Literal PAIN (from muscle cramps and bruises to just plain exhaustion) - Sacrifice (Time, money, missing moments with friends and family) SO WHY?... why...

Mommies, mothers, we feel all of the feelings. All of them. We literally feel our children’s bodies move inside of us and hear their heartbeats (thanks to the modern age) before we ever get to meet them.They hear ours, they beat together. This is not to knock fathers or deem them unimportant, my sons will be amazing fathers one day - but we mothers, though, we sacrifice for our little beings before we’ve met them ... no rules to follow ... before we know if they’ll even look anything like us. Sometimes, we love them before they’re a thought, when they're only just a dream. That's a powerful love. This is not to say that those mothers who choose to be mothers...

As awesome as it would be to able to talk to those that are no longer with us, telling them everything that we are feeling, we all know that is not a possibility. I lost my mother 12 years ago and my father 3. While my relationship with each parent had their own battles, there are memories that at 40 years old I want to hold on to and there are a lot of things that I need them to know. I have been in therapy (on and off) for many years. Talking through things has been the best way for me to move forward and address situations that I have encountered. At my therapists suggestion, I started writing letters...

Dear Miss Wanda, I didn’t know about you in February and I didn’t know about Ahmaud or how he left to go for a jog and unjustifiably lost his life. I’ve only known who you are for two weeks. We live in separate states and I realize that, but I wonder if I would have known you or Ahmaud if you lived on my street. Yesterday, I shared his post about his hashtag #irunwithahmaud on my social media. Whenever I saw that it was going viral, I immediately felt called to put on my shoes and think of him the entire way. I thought about taking out my baby boy’s stroller and heading out with all three of my sons today...

Coronavirus, COVID-19, worldwide pandemic...I do not love thee. In fact, I loathe thee. The anxiety, the frustration, the worry, the uncertainty, the disruption of our normalcy that this virus has caused has been a tough one to overcome. Everyone has been affected in one way or another and we could go on and on talking about the devastation that has come upon us. But we cannot succumb to the doom and gloom that surrounds us. Instead, now is the time to shift our focus on to the little things in life. And even though there are many negatives to focus on, there are equally as many good things that surround us if we just look.  Let’s romanticize the little things...