Auburn Gal Always

Friday Night Lights and a Flock of Ducks
(copied from Wordpress)

After school each day last week, Stinkerbell had the distinct pleasure of attending a cheerleading clinic that was run by the high school varsity and junior varsity cheerleaders. They learned all the cute little, easy cheers. How to attempt a "toe-touch" jump. How to jog-in-place/shuffle-step while clapping and saying the cheer. And the coup de gras of all 5 y-o cheerleader moves... the proper technique of jumping up and down while squealing and wiggling your fingers over your head.

Yes, my ears bled.



She got her very own Spirit Stick to keep "fo-evuh" (a broom-stick cut down to about 12" and painted and decorated with school colors, etc.) She got a cool little t-shirt in the school colors and a megaphone (cheerleaders are cruel creatures!!!), a little football and a plastic cup.

Friday night was a home game for the Fort Payne Wildcats. Before the game, the girls who had attended the cheerleader clinic were invited to cheer on the side-lines and during the victory line (the line of fans through which the team tramples runs through).

She wore her "official" cheerleading outfit that coordinated with the other little girls and looked very nice. (For $50 it should wash the bugs off my windshield!) She was very cute.

Stinkerbell had complained of a tummy ache since picking her up from school. She barely ate any supper.

Her allergies and asthma have been in overdrive all week thanks to the unholy goldenrod (sure, Bettie, it's pretty and all, but for the love of Mike, it makes our noses clog up with snot and makes us wheeze and hack!)

We were 10 minutes late. But Stinkerbell got to cheer. Mighty Hunter took pictures while I used the video camera, complete with narration about the blinking crossed-out disc that confused me.

I wore my fancy-schmancy, butch cowboy boots - which looked mahvelous, but are very heavy on my pregnant feet and this causes much difficulty in climbing bleachers when combined with sciatica! So, I pulled a muscle in my left thigh, because of which I'm still limping today!

Stinkerbell wanted to go to the victory line. I let her go alone and then remembered the tummy ache issue and decided that a little cheerleader puking on the football field in the middle of a crowd of fans and running, "fired up" high school football players might NOT be a good combination. So I fetched her, for which she was grateful.

We returned to our seats for a few minutes and decided that I had already gotten the full value of the $5 admission I had paid. So Stinkerbell and I left Mighty Hunter, his dad and brother to drive themselves home whenever they got ready to leave. (This decision was also assisted by the tummy ache-puking on the bleachers thought.)

As we got in the Pimped-out Mamamobile, I began hearing a very distinct sound coming from Stinkerbell's seat. Not a snore, although a nap wouldn't have been impossible. Not a cry or a whine. Not a whistle, like Moreena enjoyed recently. More like a quack. Or a flock of ducks quacking. 3 flocks quacking in unison to the William Tell Overture. Thankfully, it was a loud but otherwise harmless series of quacks. Many times, her "stinkies" are silent but deadly. These were the opposite. Musical animals without scent.

SBD

MAWS

I prefer the MAWS.

Stinkerbell giggles and says her embarrassed little "excuse me". But suddenly begins to feel better, swearing she'll eat supper if I'd only just buy her a biscuit with butter from Jack's. "pweese, I'm soooo hungry. I'm a poster child for World Vision. You never give me anything to eat."

Well, maybe she didn't say ALL of that. But she DID beg and say I didn't give her any supper.

And it wasn't true.

Really.

I gave her 2 saltine crackers and 3 ounces of water.