A Cheerleader In Our Midst

Well, it’s official.

I’m the mom of a cheerleader.

Practices began in December, but now the games are in full swing.

It all began last month with these. Baby-girl was confused when she first got them, but I knew what she I was in for. Specifically, I was in for an hour of separating and scrunching to make these turn out like they look in this picture below.

My hands hurt just thinking about it.

At any rate, we had our first game last week.

Ever watched a four-year-old cheer? You should. They can bring spirit without ever being hurled high in the air to get the audience’s attention.

I learned the hard way that 16-year-olds cannot, which is why I left the world of cheerleading myself before I turned 16. In a rare moment of extreme lucidity, I decided that being launched through the atmosphere by other 16-year-olds who may or may not care that much if I plummeted back to the ground without anything or anyone to stop me was, simply, not worth it. Instead I moved on to theater, where angst breeds popularity and the challenges included simpler things like learning to play the ukulele on short notice and fighting the gag reflex during awkwardly romantic scenes with boys who didn’t know how to apply Polo in moderation even on performance nights.

But I digress.

I’ll probably have little stories to share with you as the season unfolds, but I’ll just mention the highlight of her first game here. It was half-time, and the girls all walked out onto the court and formed a line across the court. Then, they took turns, starting at one side of the court and moving to the other side, each one jumping and saying her name and then landing in a squat on the ground. Twenty-some girls stood faced forward, waiting for their cues, and baby-girl was the one lone girl with her back to the majority of the audience. She was about two-thirds of the way down the line, and she continued to stand there, oblivious, staring at who knows what behind her. We watched as girl after girl jumped up, said her name and landed, the line moving closer and closer to baby-girl.

“Oh, this is going to be good,” I thought to myself, resisting the urge to run out there and turn her around myself.

For reasons unknown, she suddenly decided to turn back around right as the girl next to her was doing her thing. She clearly wasn’t paying attention to what was going on, so she forgot to say her name, but she did manage a quick jump-like movement followed by a plop-like movement that landed her on the ground, so at least the overall flow of the line ended up uninterrupted.

LCB spent the rest of the day making weak, fake attempts at squelching comments about who baby-girl got that tendency from.

Really, it’s laudable how delusional that man can allow himself to be.