You're Sick? Here's How To Survive A Cheer Competition

Cheerleading, it's now a Provincial sport.  Great news for Cheer Nova Scotia.  If you've ever watched a cheer competition you would wonder why it took so long.  Amazing stunts, fantastic tumbling and a well choreographed dance, 2 1/2 minutes or pure energy.

This energy isn't just on the mat, it's everywhere within the walls that host the cheer competition.  The kids feed off of it and in my opinion so do some of the parents.  It's honestly exhausting and that's why they call the Monday following a cheer competition "Cheer Hangover "  I get the reason why, kids are cranky from eating way too much sugar, and cranky from coming down off of a huge adrenaline dump.  However, I do hate the term Cheer Hangover.  According to the Mayo Clinic "A hangover is a group of unpleasant signs and symptoms that can develop after drinking too much alcohol."   By calling the day following all the excitement a cheer hangover you are correlating the two. Why would we do that?  I could honestly go on and on about the stats of alcohol abuse in this country and that the average age to start drinking is 12 years old but this post isn't about that.  It's about how to survive the competition if you are not well.

So you're sick and I don't mean cough, cough, hack, hack kind of sick.  I mean non functioning, unwell, hole in your head kind of sick, like me, here's my way of getting through a Cheer Competition:

Know your triggers and scout them out, then avoid, avoid, avoid.  For me it's fast moments and flashing lights.  There was a photographer set up right in front of the section where our team was sitting in the stands.  Instantly I knew I couldn't sit there.  As far as the fast movement goes, go high, as high into the stands as you can get.  The higher up you are the less chaos you have to look at.  There is a sensory over load that comes from hundreds of cheerleaders running about.  Lessen it by taking it out of your field of vision.

Ear plugs, yes ugly, but they help to drown out the screaming that comes from the sheer excitement of it all.  There is nothing more intense then holding your breathe for your child's team to hit their stunts and when they do the crowd of parents let out a roar.  Ear plugs are your friends.

Find out from a reliable source if the event is running on time.  Arriving early is great for your kid, painful for you.  Sunday I started to cry when I found out it was running an hour behind.  You have no idea how long an hour is when you would rather be someplace quiet.

Bring food!!! Bring healthy food.  There are so many option of sugar for your child to eat and of course a little is fun and yummy.  However, consuming a lot will burn your athlete out fast.  Don't forget about yourself, you too need healthy food and remember to bring extra water.  

Bring hand sanitizer and/or hand wipes.  I bring both because I know there are people there who are sick, as in contagious sick, you know the cough cough, hack hack kind of sick.  There is no way these parents are going to miss their child compete no matter how they feel.  I understand that one, hence the reason I tough it out.  So bring lots of hand sanitizer and hope for the best.

Always and I mean ALWAYS speak kindly and clap for other teams.  They have worked just as hard as your child's club and team.    Chances are good if you are not able to sit with your club due to no seating or as in my case, flashing lights, you are sitting amongst "the competition."  Sometimes the parents need this lesson more then the kids do...*cough just saying!

Learn to say "I'm done" and tell your kid that.  Chances are if your sick, your child has already learned to recognize those symptoms.  

Remind yourself that as hard as it is to be there, you wouldn't miss her compete for the world.  You know the amount of hours that have gone into a routine, suck it up and find a way to get through the day, even if all you can do is the 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

The Perfect Parent~A mini Series II

So the decision was made 14 years ago...the perfect parent, tall order to fill.  However, I set out, me and my sick daughter would do all the things I wished my mom had done with me.  Sit and colour, make messy finger paints, sing and dance, go for hikes, strolls on the beach and best of all... home made play dough.  We made a lot of play dough and lets face it, who doesn't love the stuff?  It's also non toxic when coloured with Kool-aid and to yucky tasting to worry about your child ingesting fist fulls. (I'll share my favorite recipe at the end of this post)

In between all this fun were Doctor appointments, specialists, ER visits and more illness.  It was our normal.  Amazing how the tables have turned, it's still our normal, just that I'm the one who's sick now.  Magically, and I mean that literally we welcomed a son into the world.  I say magically because our daughter was a fertility baby and he, well... he wasn't, he was free, for lack of a better word.  A true gift.   And what a joy he was.  This little bundle brought his own set of illness with him which I think is the reason that to this day they have the most amazing bond to one another.  I've seen them both on many occasions "take care" of one another when the other was sick.  Human nature is amazing, raising children with compassion is the true skill.

My kids are amazing, truly amazing human beings who understand how precious life is, how it's a gift, they weren't born that way, it was taught to them, by me.  You see the perfect parent isn't one who gives in to every whine or temper tantrum they don't buy everything the child wants, nope...they take the time to explain, to love, to be present and most importantly to listen.

I did something really wonderful for myself not that long ago, I transferred all the old home movie tapes to  DVD so we could watch them.  I was flooded with awesome memories of their toddler years and all the fun we had.  I was shocked when they told me that they didn't really remember doing those things.  I couldn't believe it, it actually made me cry, how on earth could I have put so much effort into all these awesome activities and they don't remember?  Then I realized that while I thought I was creating memories I was actually building charter in my children.  They know how to share, be kind and respect each other, those are the things you learn from making and playing play dough, Sesame street can't give you that, you get that from the "Perfect Parent"

Kool-Aid Play Dough

• 2 1/2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 or two packages of coloured drink mix like Kool-aid, use two for a deeper colour
• 2 cups of boiling water
• 3 tablespoons of oil

Mix the flour salt and Kool-aid until blended
Add the oil to the boiling water
Add water and oil to the flour mixture and stir with a metal spoon (using your wooden ones will result in lovely coloured wooden spoons :)
Once cool enough, kneed until well blended.  This part is fun for the kids, just make sure it has cooled down enough in the centre of the dough.

I've even waited to add the Kool-Aid until the end, splitting the dough up into smaller batches, but if you don't act fast you'll get "crystally" play dough as the colour crystals didn't dissolve.

I never used fancy containers just zip lock bags, one for each colour we would make.  Then we would store them in the fridge.  They should last about 2 months but if you were like my kids within a few weeks, red, blue and yellow play dough was just a big blob of brown, equally as fun, just not as pretty.

photo credits:   Kraft

The Perfect Parent~A Mini Series

We all start out to be " the perfect parent".  We read the books, take the class, eat the right food and hope to have the perfect labour to welcome our new bundle of joy into this world.  There has never been a more beautiful baby, and surely this child will be the one to end war, end starvation and run the country, all before he or she is 25.  Yes, I have the perfect child.

Very quickly reality sets in that first night home.  A horrific sound awakes your exhausted mind, crying!!  Yes that first night I was in such a deep sleep that I had forgotten that this perfect bundle of joy, was going to wake...and wake often.  I've never slept in a deep sleep like that ever again.

Suddenly those perfect images in every book are a bunch of crap.  There's no taking turn's feeding or changing the baby.  Even if it was perfectly "fair"with a chore chart with Mommy's name and Daddy's name and gold stickers marking each time a diaper was changed.  You'd swear your husband found your stash of gold stickers and secretly places as many of those shinning stars by his name as possible.  Why?  Because your exhausted, your hormonal and raising your voice has just become the norm.

I raised both of my kids pretty much on my own (yes another child follows, so the crying isn't all that bad)  My husband (now ex) works on the oil rigs, I was pretty much alone most of the time.  I have no biological family in the Province I live in, so there wasn't anyone who just came to help, and help is what I needed.  My daughter was not a healthy child, born with an immune deficiency she was sick all the time.  I was exhausted, overwhelmed and depleted.

I will never forget the day I realized that parenting was going to be what I made it.  My daughter asleep on my chest laying on the couch I watched a huge spider fixing his web.  The spider had been there for weeks growing fat and equally scary.  Everyday however, the spider would have to fix his web after that nights catch damaged the delicate silk.  The whole point of a web I suppose!  The spider however, carefully went around and around making his web perfect and beautiful, knowing that he would have to do it all over again tomorrow.  I am just like this spider, if I want to create not just a life for my daughter but a beautiful one I was going to have to work for it every single day.  This is when I decided to be " the perfect parent" or as perfect as I could be.

It's All In My Head

So here's the thing...I've been writing post like these in my other blog, Bubblegum and Honeycomb for some time now.  I've just kept them to myself, parenting struggles and yes, a few rants, that come with parenting with a brain tumour.  All unpublished, all unread.   From time to time I reread my blog posts, just to keep myself "in check".  So what did I find?  That these blog post were actually funny for the most part.  Me, with my off beat sense of humour, fumbling my way through my new maze of parenting with yes...a hole in my head.

My brain surgery left me with a toonie size hole in my head.  For all those non Canadian's a Toonie is our $2 coin that is about the size of a golf ball, obviously flat, not round, you get the idea.
Now do I think that a hole in my head changes my parenting skills...umm NO, that would be silly.  Do I think that having brain surgery has changed my outlook on parenting in this wacko world we live in...most definitely.

So my new found place to rant, praise and of course share those moments of parenting that are not taken for granted will be here.  Having a hole in your head changes who you are, not because they didn't put the piece of skull back, but because behind that hole, deep in my brain is a tumour.  That will change you, your outlook, your parenting, your patience, you ability to love deeper and honestly, to see the little things AND of course the things that drive you crazy.  The old saying, it's all in your head has a whole new meaning, that's not necessarily a bad thing.