Tales of a Cheetah-leader Mom

Saturday was the beginning of an era for me. My baby girl became a cheerleader. (Cheetah-leader is what she used to say a few months ago. So cute.) Now for my friends that have known me for a while, they are probably giggling at the fact that I am a cheerleader mom. Evil, evil giggles. Like they are “really enjoying this” type of giggles.

Here are a few things that I have learned as I have entered a new phase of my life:

• Cheerleading squads have very interesting names. My girl’s squad (my word, don’t call it a team like I did the other day. She was very quick to correct me.) is called the Twinkle Stars. OH MY SOUL. The Twinkle Stars. I asked a friend at church when I found out the name if I looked like the mother of a Twinkle Star. I don’t think so.


• The other names are just as good. The Cheerios and Sprinkles were the other “squads” on stage with the Twinkle Stars. My youngest son, N even thought that one squad was called the Toe Nails. No dude, it’s the Toe Touchers, not Toe Nails. (N’s having some issues with the names too. He just doesn’t get why they are naming them after food. Bless his heart.)


• Pom poms take 4,568 hours to fluff. No exaggeration here. Pom poms are of Satan. There are even instructions on the Upward website entitled “How to Fluff a Pom”. I’m not kidding.


• A basketball would have only taken 3 minutes to inflate by hand with a bicycle pump. Or even by mouth.


• When you are the smallest person on your squad, your uniform is big. Even if you ordered the smallest size. Apparently other 5 yr. old cheerleaders have arms the length of my leg. Needless to say we had to roll the sleeves up on the girl’s turtleneck.


• Also, when you are the smallest person on your squad, it adds to your cuteness.


• Fixing hair on Saturday morning at 7:15 a.m. is a difficult process. Especially when you really need to get some type of color coordinated ribbon placed in the hair, somehow, some way, so that said hair can match every other piece of clothing on your body. I should have just ripped out some of the pom pom ribbon and tied it in the girl’s hair. (I’m kidding. I really wouldn’t have done that.)


• After you get the hair fixed, then you absolutely cannot, under any circumstance let the child touch her hair with her pom poms. There is a lot of static produced by pom poms. (Remember their Satanic factor?) And then you gotta start all over again.


• A small plastic megaphone can increase your child’s voice by around 53 decibels.

Despite all of my “issues” with cheerleading, my girl had a blast and did everything she was supposed to do, when she was supposed to do it. Little Miss “don’t look at me” was up on that stage having a grand ol’ time.