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Tuesday, February 07, 2012

All about Madelyn

I believe it was just last week that our kids celebrated the 100th day of school. Madelyn was given a blank poster board and was asked to bring it back with 100 items. I love these kind of projects that my kids get to do. It's great to see them brain storming and coming up with their very own ideas of what to do. After rummaging through a few drawers Madelyn decided we had enough fishy crackers to do her project with. I thought that she'd just glue them on and be done with it. Boy was I wrong! After she cut the pond out and glued the fishy's to it she just kept going on and on and on. Near the end she thought the picture would be even better with clouds. She started to cut out paper when she saw the bowl of left over popcorn on the counter from the afternoon snack. Why not use popcorn for clouds? This girl amazes me with her creativity sometimes. She worked very hard on this project and I think she did a great job!


In January Madelyn participated in a mini cheer camp. She loved it! She had 3 days of 1 1/2 hours of practice with her age group. Then friday night at half time during the high school girls baskettball game they performed.

I forgot my camera to the big event but my sister Hanna had her's. Now it's just getting the pictures from her. Goooooooo.... Valley!!


Isn't she cute????


Let me tell you about the day I signed Madelyn up.... The school bus arrives about 3:30 every afternoon. So it was about that time that I heard the foot steps of my older children arriving home. These weren't the normal foot steps but the running foot steps. I just assumed someone needed to use the bathroom really bad. Madelyn bursts through the door with a gigantic smile on her face and waving a paper in my face. She said something like this, "Look mom, I can finally be a real
cheer leader! I can't take dance lessons living here but I can be a cheer leader here. This is going to be so cool. It's only $15.00 Will you please please please sign me up for it. It starts this week?

Loving this little girls excitement, the $15 fee I signed her up not thinking anything about it.


Well... the next day Kory happened to be home when Hunter got home from school by himself. He asked where Madelyn was and Hunter replied, Cheer Camp. Kory replied, Cheer Camp! While giving me a strange look. Uh Oh... O.K So I know Kory has always said our girls will never be cheerleaders but I didn't think he was serious and what's wrong with cheer camp for a 7 year old. He also said he didn't want to waste money on them taking dance classes but Madelyn took those in Prescott and it wasn't a big deal. In my defense I had only signed her up the night before and with Kory's work schedule we don't have a real chance to talk about the trivial things that happen during the day and quite frankly I didn't think that Cheer Camp would be an issue. Is there something wrong with being a cheer leader???


When the kids went away here's how our converstion went...

Kory: I can't believe you signed her up for cheer camp!

Me: What's wrong with that?

Kory: Do you know what cheer leaders do?

Me: Um... Do a dance routine during half time during baskettball games, they probably practice most days after school. It's just another extra curricular activity for HIGH SCHOOLER'S to participate in. Let's not forget she's only 7 and in 2nd grade not 9th!

Kory: But cheerleading??? Absolutely Not! Our daughter is not going to be a cheerleader!

Me: I don't know why you're blowing this out of porportion. What the heck is wrong with being a cheerleader? And she's not a cheer leader. She's 7!

Kory: ..... They dress imodestly!

Me: Oh please! And participating in sports doesn't cause you to dress immodestly?

Kory: She can play baskettball and not be running around in skimpy clothing.

Me: You're absolutely right! She can play baskettball, wear gym shorts that touch her knees and run around in a sleevless shirt with arm openings so large you can see her bra underneath or she can be a cheerleader who wears a turtle neck underneath her sleevless shirt (because it's so friggen' cold where we live) and dance around in shorts that realisticly aren't that short! Hunter's playing baskettball right now. He's running around in a sleevless shirt and that's not modest either yet you don't have a problem with that!

Kory: That's different! You weren't a cheerleader you don't know what kind of stuff they get into!

Me: What's different? It's o.k for your son to be immodest but not your daugther. In The Strength of Youth Pamplet it says for all youth to dress modestly not just the young ladies. And your right I wasn't a cheer leader, I was too shy. I do know that in my highschool the cheerleaders ran around with the jocks of the school. Cheer leaders aren't perfect just like anyone else. I'm sure they did things they shouldn't have.

Kory: That's the problem! You don't have any idea what the cheerleaders do. They were doing things with the jocks behind the bleachers that got them suspended from school. We had a cheerleader get pregnant!

Me: How do you think that cheer leader got pregnant? It didn't happen by herself! And let's talk about who got her pregnant? I'm sure it wasn't the computer geek of the school. In fact, being these cheer leaders only cheer during baskettball season I'm going to say it was someone on the boys baskettball team. Gee, Kory you played baskettball all 4 years during highschool. In fact you were considered a jock! Just becuase one jock got one cheerleader pregnant does'nt mean ALL jocks and ALL cheerleaders or our daughter will get pregnant IF she chooses to be a cheer leader in highschool in seven years! I will support all of our kids in which ever sport/cheerleading they choose to participate in. Quite honestly having seen my sister participate in Cheer this past year I'm learning how expensive it is and I hope our girls don't want to do cheer. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. There is nothing wrong with Madelyn doing Mini Cheer Camp if she wanted to.

Kory: I still don't want our girls to be cheerleaders, they just don't have high standards.

Me: Then consider this the last time Madelyn will do Mini Cheer Camp. This will also be Hunter's last year participating in Baskettball because Jock's don't have high standards either.
Kory: You just don't get it!

Me: You are absoluety right. I don't get it! You said one cheerleader got pregnant. Not all of them did. It was one jock that got her pregnant. Not all of them did. It doesn't matter if our kids play sports or not. In my highschool we had many girls that were pregnant and it wasn't every cheerleader. It was the girl labeled "loner". It was the girl that hung out with the computer geeks. It was the star volley ball player. That pregnant girl could be anyone who didn't live up to our standards along with the young man that got her pregnant. You were a jock but chose to live by the standards you were taught. The same standards I lived by and the same standards we are teaching our kids.


End of conversation!


What a converstaion that was. It totally took me by suprise. I guess I should be thankful for a husband who truly cares about our children. He doesn't want one of our daughter's to get pregnant in highschool, neither do I. I was just suprised that he had such strong feelings about cheerleaders because one got pregnant. (And in my mind I keep thinking, she didn't get that way by herself. Kory confirmed that it was a baskettball player that helped her get that way. Yet Kory has no problem with and hopes that Hunter will play ball in highschool.) After our converstaion it wasn't terribly suprising to hear that none of Madelyn's cousins participated in Mini Cheer Camp. What was a little suprising was that no one from our little town participated. Really? Am I totally wrong about my thoughts of cheerleaders?




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