Swimming with Sharks

Sharks are fascinating, they never sleep, they never stop moving but no matter how comfortable you might get, do not be deceived. They will eat you.  This is my opinion of some of the parents I meet.  They smile a toothy grin, but when they get hungry, chomp.

I think they wait to smell the blood in the water.  Wait till you are hurting, having a rough time and then its like the shark in Nemo, they can’t control the urge to bite you in two.

I guess it’s the nature of people and I am sure the realm of sports is not the only place you will witness this phenomenon.  It just never gets any easier to watch people chew you up and spit you out. 

Well the best bet is education.  Find out which sharks are least likely to eat you and try to associate with those.  But again don’t be fooled, they all get hungry so try not to look like food.

Holy S#%&*

            I am starting to panic.  It is Saturday and I have nothing to do.  I keep thinking where is the baseball jersey.  Checking the clock to see when we have to get to competition.  I need 30 minutes to get her ready.  Then I realize, no sports.  It’s Easter Weekend, thank you Jesus.  All you naysayer atheists can shove it.  I love the holidays and now I love them even more, kids don’t plays sports on the holidays. 

In the future I need to make sure our coaches are Christian so we are assured these days off.  I got lucky this time, but you never know.  I need to make a mental note right now, because I am sure some type-A freak coach, somewhere, is having a game or practice or something.

And the bonus is tomorrow.  I have two whole days off from sports.  Big sigh.  I am going to church, I am going out for lunch and I will not be praying for my kids to hit the ball, land tumbling, stunting and just not get hurt.  I will be praying that I can handle all the issues that lie in wait for me during the next baseball and cheer season.  I mean on this day I realize if Jesus hung on the cross for me to be saved, I seriously need to stop worrying so much. 

Gym Wars

My daughter is looking for a new gym and she has narrowed it down to two places.  I am at a complete loss as to which one is the right fit and she seems to flip flop, no pun intended, every day.

I keep hoping the gods of cheer will somehow appear to me in my sleep, a burning bush will start talking to me, or a color-coded galactic pom pom will hit me in the face.  I’m even considering asking the magic eight ball, but am convinced the answer would be “ask again later”.

One gym formed with coaches from the other gym, and this has caused some friction.   Both programs seem very good.  The parents at both gyms talk trash on each other.  Some of them really have negative things to say.  It’s so stupid.  I am pretty sure there are enough cheerleaders to go around.  Can’t we all just get along?

So we are taking classes at both gyms a bit longer and weighing the pro’s and con’s, (checking out the uniforms, seeing who has bigger hair bows).  I feel like I should be more in control, have a better feeling one-way or the other.  I honestly don’t, which means either gym will probably be fine.  So I’m cutting the strings and letting the kid pick.  I am still looking to the heavens, hoping a sign appears in the night sky, oh my, look!  Never mind, it was just an airplane.

That Guy

At my son’s game last night I witness firsthand “that guy”.  You know what I’m talking about.  Speaking loudly.  His opinion needs to be heard.  And not just by his team, but by everyone.  Clearly, he is the smartest guy at the game, in the bleachers that is.

He got in a snit because the coach told, I’m assuming his kid on 2^nd to steal 3^rd, which didn’t turn out so good.  He was hot under the collar and as soon as the kid started to steal, he starts yelling, “don’t send him, he’s too slow”.

I can hear a muffled remark form someone in his vicinity, who did not feel the need to speak loudly enough for the world to hear.  The guy responds with, “I know but the kid is slow and he needs to know his limitation”.  He keeps complaining for a while until it was evident his team was getting trounced, so he finally shuts up.

My son has been trounced; we once lost a game 33 to 3, brutal.  That was the only game my son came off of and admitted he had zero fun.  Coaches will make bad decisions, they are just dad’s.  I live by the mantra; I’m not out there so I’ll keep my mouth shut.  I do complain, just quietly, so if I’m wrong I don’t look like “that guy”.

White Baseball Pants (eye roll)

White baseball pants.  Horrible idea.  I don’t care how good your stain remover is you are going to have to wash those suckers several times.  Let me say this clearly, white pants suck!

I get major leaguers wearing white.  They don’t have their mom’s franticly scrubbing the grass stains out.  For Pete’s sake, the people who wash their pants get paid to do it.  I pause for a moment and imagine a world where I get paid to do laundry.  I’d be rich and defiantly a lot less bitter.

So what is the point of white baseball pants?  Did all the moms on the team do something simultaneously to piss off the coaches?  I imagine these men sitting around late one night, drinking beer and plotting the white pants.  I can hear them laughing. “ Lets get white pants, it will be hilarious watching our wives trying to get out the stains, oh and lets line them in red so they can’t use bleach, MUHWAHAHAHAHAHAH………”  Either that, or these men where not thinking?

Well at least I bought two pair, yea.  I’m not even going to tell you what that cost me.  The only good thing, well there is no good thing.  Here goes the washer for the 4^th time.

Death By Cheer

On our way back from the national cheer competition our plane began to make a horrible noise.  I am not the biggest fan of flying, my control freak side just can’t make peace with being 35,000 feet off the ground in a glorified tin can.  So when the pilot made an unscheduled landing in Vegas, due to the strange noise, I was a bit, shall we say, freaked out.

Our plane was grounded due to a mechanical problem and we were stuck in the airport all day awaiting another plane that had to fly into Vegas from Denver to get everyone home.  We got into Denver 13 hours after we left LA.  We arrived home at 3:00am.

What an end to it all.  We go to our first national cheer competition, made a vacation out of it.  I celebrated my 40^th birthday with 22 cheerleaders singing happy birthday, which, by the way, was a highlight.  But now I’m wondering how close we came to some type of tragedy.  In my overly dramatic mind it was a huge mid air explosion.

I come to the realization that cheerleading almost killed me.  The only reason we were on that plane was because of my daughter’s competition.  I’m rolling my eyes wondering if this entire experience had ended in tragedy would it have all been worth it?  The injuries, the frustration, the hair bows and sparkly face stickers.  Would it have been a good way to enter heaven, fresh off a cheer competition?

Well, who the hell knows?  We had a great time.  If I had to I’d do it all over again, which by the way I will next year, I would.  I will however, give a bit more thought to driving, or prescription medication.

Cheers to you

My cheerleader just had her Nationals in Anaheim, California.   On the up side we went to Disneyland, California Adventure and Universal Studios, on the down side we came in last, again.  My daughter was prepared for it, so she wasn’t too upset.

The night we arrived was my 40^th birthday.  A cheer competition is actually a bit more bearable with a hang over.  Who am I to turn down birthday drinks?   You only turn 40 once and it you have to do it in Anaheim CA, during a cheer competition, well, you get the point.

I have to hand it to her it was not an easy time.  During her last performance she got kicked in the leg and performed while crying in pain.  We have a picture of her in a full extension, which is a group of girls holding her up by her feet, and you can see the footmark on her thigh.

That little girl has been figuratively and literally kicked when she was down.  But she carried on, periodically crying and half smiling.  She told me later she had to complete the performance for her team.  She amazes me.  I really learn a lot from her and I think we all need to pay a bit more attention to the amazing things our kids do.  Never give up, smile when it hurts, think of others before yourself, and if you want to wear a huge sparkly bow, go for it.  You’ve earned the right.

This one I can do

      I have established that I am not an athletic person.  I never played competitive sports, I was always the first person out at dodge ball, and I never made it up that damn rope in gym class.

      There is one sport that I can hold my own at and that is skiing.  I can ski most black runs and I have even tried deep powder and moguls, although I will admit to screaming, cussing and going slow.  I have a video of myself going down one of these runs, my husband pans back and at the bottom of the hill you can see my kids, laying down waiting for me, it took me a while.

     But I love to ski; I love to be on the hill with the kids, strainging every muscle in my body to keep up with them.  I love how friendly everyone is, the entire culture is right up my alley.  Let’s not forget how awesome it is that after being on the slopes, you can basically ski up to a bar and get a beer.

     This weekend I was skiing while my daughter was boarding and a snowstorm whips up.  We had around 30 yards of visibility, strong winds and we got a bit lost.  We found our way to the lodge but had to grab a towrope to get up the hill.  We don’t take many towropes, and this one was tough to hold on to.  We held on for dear life, the wind blowing us sideways, and the rope pulling us up.  After falling several times we made it, laughing the whole time.  It was great.   Clearly, I should have worked harder at climbing that rope in gym class.