I wasn’t in the mood to go to a wiglet party. Furthermore, I
wasn’t in the mood to deal with Miss F.’s mood after that cumbersome looking
hair piece was sewn into her hair, which she would then need to sleep with and
live in until her cheer competition, some 18 hours later.  Miss F. is the kid who goes on sensory
overload from a stray dog hair caught in her shoe.  Asking her to sleep with an artificial hair
piece that has been woven into her hair is like asking a child who has sandbags
tied to her legs to do cartwheels. 

Part of the reason I was anticipating the worst was due to
my own headspace. I was tired.  It had
been a long week, with too much running around and too little sleep.   My new schedule was kicking my butt.

My big girl shoes were giving me blisters.

It’s also no secret that money has been tight this year – especially
right now.  Cheer is not a competitive
sport for those who are “short on cash.” 
Every time I drop off Miss F. for practice, I write another check.  Stunt clinic, choreography clinic, practice
clothes, cheer sneakers, competition shoes, bus fare for the first competition,
my competition ticket, the competition hair bow, and the curly pony tail hair
piece, otherwise known as a “wiglet,” used to give the girls a more uniform
look.

I’m not good when I’m tired, and I’m especially not good
when I’m tired and stressing over money. 

As much as I want Miss F. to win, winning meant the
possibility of going to nationals in Florida. And your guess is as good as mine
on how I would pay for that. Yes, I was aware of this when I signed up Miss F. for
cheer six months ago, but life was much different then.

So once again, I try to let go of the money stress, for what
was probably the fiftieth time that hour, and I take Miss F. to get her wiglet
sewn in at another cheer mom’s house.

The junior pee wees were running high on adrenaline and sugar
from the fried ice cream that the host family made for the girls. 

Between all that sugar and that stupid hair piece, this kid
was never going to bed.

We leave the wiglet party at 10:00. I am barely out of my
parking spot, when Miss F. says, “Mommy, this hair piece is really bothering
me.” 

“Try not to think about it.”

Perhaps I would have been more empathetic, except her
obsessing over the hair piece was interrupting my obsessing over money, which quite
honestly, I wanted to do without interruptions and in complete silence.

 When we get home,
Miss F.  gets ready for bed and asks, “Mommy,
can you lie down with me?”

“I need to pack your competition bag.” 

The coaches gave us a list of everything that needed to be
packed in each girl’s bag, which would be checked in the morning by a team
mother before the girls got onto the bus.

“Please.  Just for a
little while?”

“Baby, I don’t want to run around last minute in the
morning. I need to do it now.” 

I kiss her on the forehead. Miss F. sighs, defeated, and
heads up the stairs.

An hour later, I hear a whimper from the second floor.

I climb the stairs and find Miss F., lying in bed, with her
head in a contorted position.

“Mommy, I can’t sleep with this thing.” 

“Here, baby, here,” I offer, as  I prop pillows around and underneath Miss
F.’s head, which, at the direction of the coaches, has been covered with a
pink, fabric “hair style protector.”

I climb into bed next to her. While I can’t get too close to
her due to the barricade caused by her fake hair, her body begins to
relax. 

She’s struggling, I remind myself, and it’s not the
wiglet.  It’s the stress she’s been under
for weeks, to perfect their routine, to go into the arena tomorrow and blow
away the competition. To remember to smile and not fidget, and keep the
movements tight and in synch and to not fall when she’s on top of that
pyramid.  The wiglet is the obvious – the
tangible thing that hurts.

Like the money is the obvious, the tangible thing that
hurts. 

For Miss F. to hold her own tomorrow, she’s going to have to
live with this pain.  And for me to hold
my own in life, and to move forward, past my flaws and mistakes and my self-imposed
limitations, I’m going to have to live with some pain, too.  At least for now.

Let’s home that we both come out winners.

To be continued…

Part one of my Cheer
Mom trilogy can be found here, on Shell’s blog, Things I Can’t Say.

Namaste, Divas!