The Waiting

It's been a busy and stressed out week at Maggie's Farm. This week has been cheer tryout week. Cheer tryout week comes with much stress, irritation, short tempers and once the tryout part is over, the cheerleader must wait. The tryouts ended, last night, and the girls will not know the results until they go to the school, today, on Saturday, to view the results on the lists that are posted on the outside doors.

The lists....you pull into the parking lot and the lists are looming there. Your legs feel like jello as you approach them. Some girls are jumping up and down, some are crying and some are mad and say mean things. As a mom, you hope, PLEASE, that your kid's name is on that list.

The cheerleader has been cheering since peewee football squads back in 4th grade. She has cheered jr. high and high school squads. She is a good cheerleader and tumbler. It's her life. Her sport. She attacks cheerleading. She doesn't just cheer, she eats, sleeps, breathes cheering.

It's fun to watch her cheer the Varsity football and basketball games. It's fun to watch her tumble. It's been fun to follow the squad from freshman year. To me, and my ever changing moods, I know that her cheering is nothing short of a miracle.

The cheerleader has had two very major surgeries in her young life. This is not to make you sad for her or to post about bad memories. But the fact that the cheerleader is out there doing all of this stuff takes my breath away. She has had a heart surgery and a back surgery. She retrained herself in gymnastics and cheering once she was given the okay after her back surgery. So, to see her out there, poms in hand and to see her take off on the court in a series of back handsprings and back tucks, it is a pretty amazing thing for Mr. Man and me to watch.

So, not only does she love cheering and is good at it, cheering marks a milestone of sorts for us, as a family. To have her out there, doing this, means more than just watching a peppy cheerleader. It marked the point where she made her comeback and has never looked back at that back surgery.

Today will be the first time that I don't drive her to view the lists. The first time I won't be by her side to see the results. She drives, now, and wants to go alone and to be with her friends. She will be a senior, next year, and these will be her last high school tryouts. I hope the results are happy for her.

So, today is sure to be long until she can go to the school. The waiting really is the hardest part...