Help me. I am trapped in Ballet Purgatory with a giant nutcracker and I can't get out.
I have been here since early September, when my daughter was cast to dance the role of a mouse in the Annapolis Ballet Theater's excellent production of Tchaikovsky's holiday ballet.
I am not alone in the wings of this stage. There are 23 other mouse mothers, in addition to the mothers of the 24 Christmas children, 14 toy soldiers, 12 cherubs, six sweetettes and six gingerbreads.
That doesn't count the children singing and tap-dancing across town in The Talent Machine Company's production of "Holiday Magic." More than 50 of Bobbi Smith's students have been rehearsing 25 Christmas numbers for about 12 hours a week since practically before the pools closed for the season.
What this means is you can't buy blush or blue eye shadow in Annapolis for love or money right now because some stage mother has scarfed it up for her daughter's Caboodle. I blew $40 in the makeup and hair spray aisle of the drugstore and I don't even wear lipstick.
Everywhere mothers are showing the strain of performance anxiety. We simply used to attend these Christmas shows in our good-faith attempt to install some cultural family traditions.
Now, after three months of rehearsals, every mother stitching taffeta backstage is certain she could strap on those toe shoes, gel back her bangs, and do that Sugar Plum Fairy number. No sweat.
This is far beyond recital-dom. Show up for class, buy the costume, and you're in the recital. One dress rehearsal and one performance and you're outta there.
The children compete for roles in "The Nutcracker" and "The Talent Machine." They can, like, get cut. Rejected!
I don't know if 8-year-olds can deal with this, but the mothers of 8-year-olds cannot. When I heard a neighbor's child had made the cast, I was afraid we were going to have to move if Jessie did not.
"Most of the mothers are normal," said a friend who is an old hand at this. "They act like they are just taking their kid to a sporting event, not like they have the next Macaulay Culkin."
The girls learn the rules of the game quickly. They want to take the tap classes, the ballet classes, the voice classes that the other girls in this special social order take. They want the dance bag and the water bottle, the ankle warmers and the ballet skirts. All the stuff of performing. Jessie is asking for a pair of velvet jazz shoes and she doesn't even take jazz.
They learn the social graces some of their mothers have not mastered. They wish each other good luck before auditions and hug each other after.
"It is uncool to act like it means a lot to you," said my friend. That goes for the mothers, too, I suspect.
Why do we do this? Why are we spending the first three months of a new school year and the dwindling moments before a major holiday sitting outside a dance studio reading Newsweek?
My husband thinks it is a thinly disguised pyramid scheme. Veteran ballet mothers are secretly rewarded for recruiting new mothers. It's easy for him to make fun. I'd like to see what he'd be like if his son were cast in the role of a starting quarterback.
I am as happy as Jessie to be part of "The Nutcracker" genealogy. I have watched children grow up through "The Nutcracker" and "The Talent Machine" and I am sentimental about what I have seen. It is kind of like reincarnation. The children come back as something more challenging each year.
I remember when Mark Anselm was a Christmas child. And, my goodness, he is dancing the role of Fritz this year. His older sister, Monica, is a sweetette. It seems like only yesterday she was doing the famed "cherub walk."
And Lacey Hennessey is a Christmas child this year, just as her two older sisters have been. She was born during rehearsals five years ago. Their mother, Carol, has been sitting cross-legged on the floor of Maryland Hall eating McDonald's with her children during rehearsals for as long as I can remember.
There is a downside to all of this and it is that my family will not be having Christmas until after Valentine's Day. I can't drive Jessie all over kingdom come, help keep track of all the stuff in her dance bag, and still shop, bake and trim.
No pressure from me, but if you want to see my daughter dance the role of a mouse in "The Nutcracker, give me a call. I'm sure I can get you a couple of tickets. If not, I can get you the video.