Silently Screaming

I survived! Yeah me!

no, no, not my first day of school (although I managed to get out of that fairly unscathed, only 100 pages of reading for History and several problems for both my math classes all due Wed. What happened to the first day of class consisting of going over the syllabus and getting to know each other?!)

So, if it wasn't MY first day of school, you may ask, "Kelly, just WHAT did you survive?"

I survived the first day of Princess' 2nd year of Junior Cheer. I have to tell you what a great accomplishment this is. I still have a sour taste in my mouth from last year (translate that as coaches telling you to arrive 30 minutes prior to the game and then rolling in themselves about 15 minutes prior to the game, and oh did I mention their daughters were of course on the team so no matter how many of us were there we couldn't even do anything! and really that was just the tip of the iceburg).

This year started no different. On a whim last weekend I thought I'd check the website because we hadn't gotten a call from a coach about picking up uniforms or pictures. I saw on the website that uniforms were being handed out the next day (last monday) and just as I was getting ready to call the coordinator, she calls me (this is about 5 Sunday night mind you). Needless to say I'm not thrilled but she explains that she is waiting to hear from a couple moms and our team doesn't have a coach yet, but we'll get it all figured out. OK, I can live with that, but OH wait. Another mom (who's daughter is a friend of Princess and cheered with her last year) WE volunteered to coach the team this year. We figured it couldn't be any worse than what we put up with last year! So Monday as we are picking up uniforms we tell coordinator again, hey we're willing to coach. Oh no, that's OK, my daughter is going to do it. Hmm, interesting. I don't know how old her daughter is but probably early 20s and explain to me again why you wouldn't want to get parents involved?!

Now fast forward a few days to the fact that pictures were yesterday afternoon at 1. Nobody ever called us. Nope, so we showed up at the field and several of us were NONE to happy. Coordinator comes around and makes sure everybody knows who their coaches are, as there are team pictures after. Since we hadn't gotten a call I said "practices still going to be thurs & fri?" she turns around and says "no, Monday". To which I reply "as in TOMORROW" yep, 5:30. Now last year they were from 4-5 or 4:30-5:30 or something like that and they were in the gym at the intermediate school. Well, we decided that since the football players practiced outside, so should we so now we get to practice near where the rocket footballers practice.

So, we show up today at 5:30. Coordinator coach wasn't there and the other two coaches were just standing around letting the girls do nothing (one of the moms made a comment under her breath about how organized they were, and my response of "oh we did this last year and it doesn't get any better" really didn't help matters I suppose I should learn to just keep my mouth shut). GRRRR (keep telling yourself, it's only $50, it's only $50....you get what you pay for after all!). Coordinator arrives (about 10 minutes late) to a throng of mothers standing on the sidewalk and tries to dismiss us. Oh it's ok, you can leave, they're fine. Um, I don't think so! They opened cheer up to 1st & 2nd graders this year and I could just see the mother's of the younger ones processing this statement in their heads.....like she thinks I'm going to leave my child HERE alone! ROFL

Only one of the 3rd graders from last year came back to cheer this year and for some reason she wasn't there tonight. They split the teams into 3rd & 4th (well I guess now 1st-4th) and 5th & 6th. This means that NONE of the girls Princess cheered with last year are on her team this year. They did let her cheer with the older girls tonight since she knows all the cheers. The older girls ran through 4 of the really simple cheers and then broke up into small groups to help the new girls learn them too. I can't tell you how happy all of us were when 6:30 rolled around!

Tomorrow I have only one class, and it's just an orientation for my online class. It doesn't meet 'til 3 so I think Princess and I are heading out to paint some pottery and maybe order a great big pizza. (anything but a Happy Meal, anything but a Happy Meal, anything but a Happy Meal). You have to think positive!