Is Anybody Else Terrified of Cheerleaders?

There is a group of 28 ‘tweens that scares me to death.

Who are they?

My daughter’s Pop Warner Cheerleading team.

Why am I so afraid of them?

Because they are good enough to make it to the National Championships again this year.

By way of explanation, the Pop Warner National Cheer and Dance Competition is in Disney World December 7 to December 11 this year. Threee weeks before Christmas.

Considering our current economy, Christmas is a scary enough thought this year. As the price of everything continues to rise, everybody is feeling the crunch. Most of us are wondering how we are going to put food on the table and still fit in Christmas presents.

Many of us involved in Pop Warner are wondering how we are going to afford Christmas presents and a trip to Florida three weeks before Christmas.

This past weekend was the beginning of the Pop Warner Cheerleading competition season. Most conferences across the country held the first round of competitions this Saturday and Sunday. We found out which teams will be moving on to their state level events.

Our team had their first competition yesterday. We all hauled ourselves out of bed around four am yesterday morning. We met the bus by six and kissed our daughters good-bye and good luck. We raced to Trenton and descended on the arena like vultures in order to get the best seats. We waved like lunatics when our girls took their seats to wait for their mat time. We sat on the edge of our seats and held our breath for two and a half minutes while they performed an absolutely awesome routine. And we cheered wildly when they were done.

For those of you that have never been there, I know it’s hard to understand. I remember my daughter’s first year. The weeks leading up to competition were a flurry of activity and mounting tension. I was amazed at how into it all of the parents seemed to be. Two of my daughter’s best friends joined the same year as she did and the other two mothers and I all joked about how we seemed to have landed in a cult.

By the time we got to the first competition the next year, we realized that we were part of the cult.

We were planning everything around what dates competition would be. We were packing bags filled with noise makers and pom-poms and signs. We were searching the vendor tables for new cheer gear and thinking “I like this, but I wish it came in red!”

We were full-fledged cult members.

After missing out on going to the Nationals by a heart breaking .025 points that first year, our girls made it to Nationals last year.

It was an absolutely incredible experience! All of the running and pressure and inconvenience melted away the second those girls came running out onto the mats in Disney World.

That’s where the problem lies.

As every other cheer mom understands, you want very badly for your daughter’s team to do well. The feelings of pride and awe in their accomplishments are overwhelming. You watched them go from your average bunch of young girls to a well-oiled machine in ten short weeks. You watched them come out on to the floor in a large arena in front of thousands of people and perform with extreme grace under pressure.

You can’t wait to see them do it again.

The only problem is, every time they do it again, you get one step closer to a forced vacation three weeks before Christmas.

It’s the proverbial double-edged sword.

Well, my daughter’s team took first place in their conference yesterday.

I laughed and cried and screamed and jumped up and down and shook my cow bell wildly. I have no voice left today from all of the screaming I did.

Then I came home and thought, “Oh god - how are we going to pay for this again!”

Well, I guess we’ll figure it out.

I have to get going now, though: I need to go personalize my cow bell