The calendar for summer is filling up fast. Summer is just too short!! Things will be very different this summer, mainly because Emily is now a cheerleader. The coach sent home a schedule of practices and fund raisers with a note at the top that said more could be added, but everything on the schedule is mandatory. So, she gave us a two-week window in June for vacation (which leaves little time for planning), practices 5 days a week through the summer, and fund raisers every other Saturday. CRAP.
Parents are expected to be involved in fund raisers. If we’re doing a bake sale and everyone spends $25 plus time to bake cookies and cupcakes, we sit in the hot sun all day to sell this stuff (to make a grand total of $65), I’d as soon take out my check book, donate $75, and enjoy the weekend. I think car washes are more profitable, especially with cheerleaders in wet tee-shirts. What a bad mother to say such a thing…but it’s true. Boys will be bringing their cars to be washed just for a reason to stand around and watch girls in wet shorts and tee-shirts washing them.
Emily did very well in her tryout, but I knew she would. She was very confident in herself. She loves to perform, is an accomplished dancer, and a level-6 gymnast (well, she was when she quit gymnastics). She and Erin were cheerleaders for a junior football team when they were 7 or 8, and both wanted to quit mid-season…of course I wouldn’t let them because of the financial investment, and the principle of not finishing something started. They didn’t like practicing outside in the heat and bees. Emily is still very phobic about any flying insects (including even butterflies and moths), so it’ll be interesting to see how this all goes.
Emily has toyed with the idea of being a cheerleader all through high school, but didn’t try out because of the summer practice schedule and bitchy girls. She will be a senior next year, so it must be that she succumbed to now-or-never pressure. My concern is that she will be faced with scheduling conflicts when Governors Cup and Science Olympiad practices start up, and she has a tutoring job to deal with…not to mention her own schedule of classes, and adhering to college and scholarship application deadlines. With all the games and competitions cheerleaders do, she will have to do some heavy evaluation of her priorities. She will definitely have to learn to manage time better than she does.
Parents are expected to be involved in fund raisers. If we’re doing a bake sale and everyone spends $25 plus time to bake cookies and cupcakes, we sit in the hot sun all day to sell this stuff (to make a grand total of $65), I’d as soon take out my check book, donate $75, and enjoy the weekend. I think car washes are more profitable, especially with cheerleaders in wet tee-shirts. What a bad mother to say such a thing…but it’s true. Boys will be bringing their cars to be washed just for a reason to stand around and watch girls in wet shorts and tee-shirts washing them.
Emily did very well in her tryout, but I knew she would. She was very confident in herself. She loves to perform, is an accomplished dancer, and a level-6 gymnast (well, she was when she quit gymnastics). She and Erin were cheerleaders for a junior football team when they were 7 or 8, and both wanted to quit mid-season…of course I wouldn’t let them because of the financial investment, and the principle of not finishing something started. They didn’t like practicing outside in the heat and bees. Emily is still very phobic about any flying insects (including even butterflies and moths), so it’ll be interesting to see how this all goes.
Emily has toyed with the idea of being a cheerleader all through high school, but didn’t try out because of the summer practice schedule and bitchy girls. She will be a senior next year, so it must be that she succumbed to now-or-never pressure. My concern is that she will be faced with scheduling conflicts when Governors Cup and Science Olympiad practices start up, and she has a tutoring job to deal with…not to mention her own schedule of classes, and adhering to college and scholarship application deadlines. With all the games and competitions cheerleaders do, she will have to do some heavy evaluation of her priorities. She will definitely have to learn to manage time better than she does.
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| Halloween cheerleader |
2 comments:
Cheerleading is still a mysterious thing here. I love seeing the girls doing it on tv. They look so fit and strong. Years ago there were cheerleaders that would come on before a football match and all that the camera men focused on was the fact that some of the girls wore gstring knickers under their skirt.
You are not a bad mother for stating a fact - girls in wet tshirts will bring in more $$$$ than sugary cakes being sold by parents. Oh, maybe I am a bad mother because I think it is okay too.
It's a hard slog when kids are really into sport, music etc. outside of school. I have friends who spend their entire weekend and three evenings a week getting to all the activities. It's not forever though and that is what parents do.
Good luck with the baking - I love baking cakes but only to eat, not to sell over a long hot day.
Cheerleaders wearing g-strings under their skirts sounds to me a bit like something for a pornographic movie. Our cheerleaders wear cheerleader tights that are actually like nylon short shorts. Cheerleaders do need to be fit with all the tumbling and dancing they do.
My days of running kids here and there are nearly over, but I’ve certainly done my fair share of it. All my kids were very involved in a variety of activities, and of course they were all doing different things. My youngest two finally both have driver licenses and cars to drive, which is a whole new set of worries for me.
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