Lessons Learned

Yesterday was my daughter’s first cheerleading competition.  She has been taking cheerleading lessons since January or so, a reward for doing so well in school and leverage for me to get her to clean up her room. (Clean your room or no cheerleading! You know the drill!) Turns out,  she liked it. A lot.

I knew she would.  She is my spun sugar, cotton candy, girlie girl.  She has demanded polished fingernails and toenails since she was 3. Her second sentence ever, in life, was “I’m in the rain, my hair, my hair!”  I wash her clothes and I have entire loads that are pink.  Pale pink, medium pink, dark pink, hot pink. Pink.

So we manned up and bought the uniform (I had already bought her good shoes and the pompoms - you can’t be a cheerleader without pompoms and also, with my family history (knee replacements, ankle fusions, spinal stenosis, hip replacements, etc.) we will be wearing good shoes.)

The night she got her uniform was magical for her.  She was transformed.  She was not just a girl taking cheerleading lessons.

She was a cheerleader.

And yesterday was her first competition.  It was local, and she somehow talked her kindergarten teacher into coming to watch her compete. (How awesome is this woman - spending a sunny May Saturday in an old gym watching group after group after group of little girls cheer. And dance. And stand there and look around and sorta kinda wave pompoms?  As soon as school is out she is SO going to be my BFF!)

Anyway.

My daughter’s group competed in the middle of the herd.  I had noticed that most of the groups didn’t move - they lined up and stayed in their lines throughout their cheers and their dances.  My kid’s group changed position several times, making me think hey, they are pretty good - but what do I know? I was never a cheerleader, and I spent very little time giving a shit about what made a cheer or dance routine good or not good.  Instead, I spent my high school years:

a. Making out with my boyfriend on the band bus (i.e. the rolling den of iniquity)

b. Writing poems about death and fear of birds and the sky. Yes, the sky.

c. Driving around really fast with the windows open and the music up really loud.

d. MAKING FUN OF CHEERLEADERS.

So I had no idea what to expect.

Well we were watching and I’m thinking hey, they might actually have a shot at winning this damn thing, when the pervy old fat way-too-into cheerleading announcer man says “Remember, parents, the top 5 teams today go on to the TRI STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS NEXT WEEKEND!”

The who what?  I turned to my husband. “What did pervy old man just say?”

He looked panicked. “Something about next weekend and Top 5 teams and Tri State something?”

Oh hell.

Should they not have told us that this was a possibility? Shouldn’t SOMEONE SOMEWHERE have said “Hey, yo, once you spend THIS $35, if your kid wins, you get to spend another $35 and travel to another city and do this again IN ONE WEEK NO MATTER WHAT THE HELL YOU HAVE PLANNED!” 

So they start announcing the teams and giving the girls their trophies. And we parents figure out that they are announcing the teams in reverse order. And we keep not hearing her team’s name.  And then they are up to the top 2 and the other team that hasn’t been called is the big team from a nearby slightly more affluent suburb.  Their parents showed up with signs and glitter and cowbells. Cowbells, people. We just knew, since their group of parents were obviously more together than our group of parents, that they must have won.

But our girls, in their innocence and pure love of cheering in a gym on Tuesday nights, had no idea what the hell was going on.  They didn’t know why after every team that the pervy old guy announced, we got more and more excited. They didn’t know why the parent helpers were in tears. They didn’t know why we all had our cameras out and why we were rushing the  mat, wanting to capture this exact moment in time. 

No, they didn’t get that.

All they knew was that they did not have their freaking trophies yet.

Finally, pervy old guy says, “And in second place, from not-too-far-away…..Slightly More Affluent Suburb!”

Which means that our girls won!

Our scrappy little girls, who had to practice on the de-consecrated soccer field last week because the gym was being used for the Primaries, won.

And we are going to the TriState Championships.

And they got their trophies. And their blue first place ribbons.

And when were finally able to explain to them what, exactly, all this meant, they were more excited than I can articulate.  Excitement drummed through them, pulsing, uncontrollable, uncontainable.

And nothing in my entire life has felt as good as seeing her face, an angelic and pink smiling face beaming with pride mixed with joy mixed with that feeling of knowing her team had actually WON.

And what did I learn from all this?

Well, as my friend CV and I have always said - you become what you mock.  Or, if the Universe is being particularly crafty, your children become really good at what you’ve mocked.

And you get over your bullshit and you buy a cowbell and some glitter and you hug your kid and tell her how proud you are of her and you realize - this is what being a mom is all about.

 

~ by Heather on May 11, 2008.