Cheer Mom

This post just cracks me up. I wrote it several years ago now, and I never really came up with a good ending, but it is still so darn funny that I think I'll just go ahead and post it now..now that I've lived through it and no one can really put a hit out on me:


I'm missing the cheer mom gene. In Texas, they take their football very seriously. Even high school teams enjoy a huge community following and the starting players enjoy celebrity just like what you see in the movie Friday Night Lights. And it almost goes without saying, Texas mom's take their cheerleading seriously.

D was a gymnast. I was happy in my little gymnast mom role, carted her to practice three days a week, meets on Saturdays, fundraisers every so often. I was content and life was grand. In 8th grade, D tried out for Cheerleading. D was a G-Y-M-N-A-S-T, she made the squad with ease. It wasn't really a big deal, practice after school, no more astronomical gym tuition and fees, no sweat. D decided cheer wasn't that big a deal and didn't try out for the 9th grade squad, but when high school rolled around, the lure of fame and fun was too strong.

I got my first taste of Texas-mom-cheer syndrome when D made that first squad in 7th grade. My hair stylist told me that one of the women who worked for her in the salon had a daughter who was an eighth grader had tried out for that same squad and didn't.make.it. and there was "a seventh grader" who DID. *Insert accusatory tone here* I've got pretty thick skin for stuff like that, too bad, my kid can do every tumbling trick in the book and she's just as cute as yours. I'm pretty sure my "it's a middle school cheerleading squad, not a big deal" attitude didn't help much.

Fast forward to tryouts in ninth grade. Girls are waiting to go in the gym, every single mom is there, in alllllllll her glory. I was lucky if I only had a small amount of puke or whatever on my shirt, and I'd barely made any effort to show up at all, I mean, really, you can't WATCH them try out, noooooo, you sit in the hall for "moral support". Excuse me, but my tender motherliness is directly proportional to my comfort level. Chasing two small children through the high school halls is not comfortable or fun to me. The mom who's daughter was jilted in 8th grade squad had been enrolled in a cheer gym and made the squad the year D decided not to try out. As I was pulling B off the top of a stairwell, I'm pretty sure I heard them saying something about having "seen it all" as far as girls who "deserved" to be on the squad not being chosen. *Insert more accusatory looks here* Both girls made the squad so bloodshed was averted for the time being.

But the first CPO meeting I managed to remember and make it to was my baptism by fire. My indoctrination and my wake up call that this.is.the.big.leagues.now.honey. I walked into the church meeting room, the smell of Chanel and hairspray nearly knocked me off my feet. As I scanned the room, I thought I might have accidentally stumbled into a Mary Kay meeting, but when I recognized the objects on the tables were not mirrors, but heavily "bling-ed out" designer handbags, and the bubbly blonde at the front asked me who my daughter was, I knew it was too late to run. It was like walking into the Twilight Zone, people. I'm telling you, it was like the high school popularity club on steroids, with money and bigger cars.

Nope. I don't fit in well with the Cheer Mom club. But I'm not worried, they've got more than enough "pep" to make up for my cheer mom slacker-ness.