Tales From a Cheer Mom

I'll start out with a disclaimer of this tale may not last very many days. My little bitty baby girl is trying out for middle school cheerleader.

Let's jump right in with details:

For starters - here is what is expected of tryouts:

#1. Very important: before they even enter the gym they MUST have read, discussed and signed the cheer laws with their parents (which is similar to a small chapter book)

#2 The child shall attend a mandatory cheer clinic for three days, during which they will learn a cheer, a new dance, and the dance to the fight song.

#3 Then the child will tryout, in front of independent judges from the NAACP...or maybe it's the NACCP. Either way, they won't be from this town.

Sound fair?

Well, so far, it does.

My first thought, was...if I can sit in during the clinic, then I can video the cheer and routine and help her practice at home. I suspected that the clinic would be open but the audition would be cosed. I was wrong, both were closed to parents.

Sort of.

There happened to be some sort of clause that would allow a parent to sit in and video if their child could not be at the clinic in person. I did witness parents going in to video, but did not see any parent questioned as to what had prevented their child from attending. Now, I'm sure, these parents had arranged ahead of time and got permission to video....right? Right. (I assume.)

Either way...if there are recordings of the cheer and dance, I'm thinking those recordings are cheer gold right about now.

Day 1 was Tuesday.

Day 2 was today.

Her feelings after day 1 were pretty glum. Today, however, after getting more practice in and retaining more memory of the dances and cheer, she's feeling a bit more optimistic. She's also looking a ton better than she did yesterday.

Either way, I'm glad to see her having fun and her little sister is loving every minute of this. I adore watching the older one practice behind her big sister trying to pick up the moves and words. It's really cute!

Wish her luck!

It's 16 girls (pretty sure on that number) trying out for 5 spots.