Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Sisterly Love...


“I don’t get it mom, it’s like Margo doesn’t want to believe I’m on her team.”

“Well, what do you mean?” I ask thinking, ‘DUH! Of course she doesn’t! You’re the bane of her existence you two couldn’t be more opposite. This is HER team and you are, in her mind, encroaching on her turf.’

“Well during practice if I say something to her she just looks at me and makes this face but doesn’t say anything,” says Agnes sort of screwing her lips up.

“Weird,” I respond, “But here’s the deal when you are born only a year apart and you are sisters you will eventually be on the same team due to age guide-lines so that’s just kind of the way it is.” I say this more for Margo’s benefit who is now smirking pretending neither of us can see her.

We are entering our fourth year of cheerleading and to this point in time my girls have never been on the same team so this year is totally new for them. We just started ‘season’ last Sunday and they’ve had two practices together- as in ‘on the same team’. I get Margo’s intense dislike for the situation but the bottom line is her mom’s a slut very fertile. I got knocked up a second time when Margo was only eight months old, and things get dicey when kids are born that close in age. Margo is old for her grade and Edith is just about right for hers. If Margo had been born a few months earlier she’d be two grades ahead of Edith instead of just one but Gru and I didn’t know anything about planning that kind of shit, I just wanted to get pregnant with no regard to what that meant for kindergarten registration. Very selfish of me.


            (Margo in happier days...like before Edith was on her team)
Ridic.

Poor Margo. 

Since Edith is so strongly inclined to be ‘big’ she made it her goal to not just get her back handspring this year but her round-off back handspring. Typically kids get a janky standing back handspring and it takes a while- sometimes months and months!-  to figure out how to connect it to the round-off. Connecting is a super big when you’re going from that simple BHS (back handspring) to the RO BHS (round-off backhandspring). In all-star cheerleading there are many components- dance, jumps, stunting and tumbling. Tumbling breaks down into ‘standing tumbling’ and ‘running stumbling’.  For Edith it was imperative to be ‘big’ and nail that running tumbling down with her RO BHS and prove to the coaches she was ready to move up. She almost got her RO BHS before her BHS (keep in mind this is the same kid who potty-trained in the middle of the night BEFORE being potty-trained during the day, she is the definition of back assward).


            (Edith doing her thing...being sassy as hell on the floor)


Margo, as you can imagine, was very supportive of all of this…until she realized it meant the next step for Edith was to leave her team and move up to the next team, which sadly for Margo, was Margo’s team.

It will be a long year for me because I have to hear from Margo how she would rather clean the rabbit’s litter box with her toothbrush and then use that same poop-stained toothbrush to brush her teeth than have Edith on her team. I will continually hear from Edith how she thinks that Margo doesn’t want her on her team which, if you know Edith, will mean she will do everything in her power to drive the point home to Margo in every single annoying way she can (even if that means nailing down her round-off back tuck before Margo does…which might put Margo right over the edge, she already wants Edith to go to military school and isn’t afraid to mention it at every appropriate time that she can).


SS, who, as an only child, still cannot figure out why my girls have to fight so much instead of just getting along and loving each other, is that REALLY too much to ask?!?!!?

5 comments:

  1. Well, speaking as one of five kids, with the gaps in age between us spanning 10 full years, I can honestly say it didn't help me any to be way, way younger than everyone else and thus never eligible to be on a team with them. I was just really lonely most of the time. I guess that's better than fighting, from the parents' perspective, but it was awful for me.

    Little known (or cared about) fact: I was a cheerleader in college and because of my very weird childhood spent jumping on all the older neighbor kids trampolines I could do a running front tuck in the center of the gym long before I could ever do a back-anything. The other cheerleaders thought that was odd for some reason. They insisted the backwards stuff was easier, but to me hurling myself backwards, intentionally trying to spear my head backwards into the ground, seemed like the most insane thing I was ever asked to do. But I did master the ROBHS and go on to do a lot of them. I just wasn't ever a huge fan of that whole throwing myself upside down backwards idea. Front flips were just much more fun and always easier for me.

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    1. Naked Steve- I had NO idea! I wish you had some video of that...or maybe you do, hmmmmm?!?!?!! I love watching dude tumblers at competitions- they are so strong and powerful in their tumbling. Can you still tumble? You should try...I have a mean front walkover. ;)

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  2. One day these two will be best friends and SO GLAD that you had them this close together. But until then, hang on tight. It sounds rough.

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  3. I purposely made my kids three years apart (and they're boys but I had no control over that lol) hoping it would make them fight less. I say this as I hear them scream at each other downstairs. I really should break it up...

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  4. My brother and I (3.5 years apart) fought constantly. We are completely opposites in everything. Everyone used to say we'd be close when we grew up- um no- we aren't. My two (boy and girl 2 years, 11 mos apart) fight alot but much nicer to each other than I remember being with my brother. I hope they are close when they grow up.

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