Reaching For the Stars

When we marry our best friends and start a family, there are dreams we have for ourselves, but then the dreams we have for our children, those trump our own every time. We always want for our children what we didn't or couldn't have as kids. We dream for our kids, not because we didn't accomplish our own dreams, but because we love to see the excitement on our kids' faces when their dreams come true.

Of course, things don't always come easy and in most cases, it shouldn't. Hard work, determination, and dedication is what it takes to get to the end result, then the accomplishment is that much sweeter. I've never been a parent to just let my kids win in anything in order to avoid the feelings of disappointment for them. I've felt when it came time that my kids beat me fair and square, how sweeter was that victory for them and what an accomplishment!

Life lessons, some are tougher than others. But we all have to go thru them, even if it meant experiencing great disappointment. What I wanted to teach my kids was that hard work does pay off in the end. I wanted the success for them when they did work hard for it. Society today is tough, anything kids are involved in, they had to have started when they were in diapers, seriously. But it's up to us as parents to guide and control what and how much our kids are doing, I feel there can be too much put on kids' plates nowadays.

My youngest daughter is 12 years old, in the 7th grade and will not be an official teenager until the middle of June. Growing up in elementary and the different activities offered, she tried them all, except field sports, I felt she wasn't right for it. She wanted to try ice skating, she did, but she wasn't right for that either. She tried dance, she was cute, but what little girls isn't cute in a tutu? She did some modeling. Then along came competitive cheerleading, because her big sister was involved in it, she so wanted to be like her big sister. There is an eight year difference between them.

Competitive cheerleading it was. But once she got onto the higher teams, the other activities she was interested in trying, I had to say no because cheerleading practice and competitions took up a lot of time. The choice had to be made, cheerleading or no cheerleading, there really wasn't room for more. There was a year when she wanted to quit because she was placed on a team she felt she was too advanced for. This was the year that she had to learn that when it came to something you loved doing and your goal was to be the best at it, you had to stick it out and make the best of it. And she did. And it paid off at the next tryouts, which was this past cheer season. She was placed on the high level team and that was a huge reward for all her hard work and dedication. What a great learning lesson for her.

Now she will be starting her 6th year of competitive cheer. Her last season ended on a very high note in Orlando. Mind you, it's not as glamorous as one would think. It's a lot of waiting around and days full of loud music and a lot of people. It takes a lot of patience on the parents' part too. Some things you just can't control, which is very hard for myself and my hubby, but we've learned to be very flexible with this sport. You do what you have to do for the sake of what your kids love to do.

The season ended March 13th and tryouts were March 26th. Not much time in-between to breathe. You would think I would be used to tryouts by now, but the nerves are still there, not for myself, but for my daughter. Of course, I thought my daughter did well during her tryouts. But sitting there and watching some of the other girls and you hear THIS is the moment when everything is determined well, there went my hopes for my daughter's chances for even trying out for THE highest team. And this was the year she wanted the chance to maybe crossover to THE team. Oh well, I knew she would still be on the other high level team, that was still great.

Then the waiting began for the results. This wasn't your ordinary waiting just hours for the results, we had to wait until 10:00pm the next evening! Talk about stress! I was hopeful and would check the website for the results practically every hour on the hour before the 10:00pm post time being hopeful that we wouldn't have to wait that long. Then magically, around 8:00pm, the results were up! Ahhhhh!! It took me a few minutes to get to see the results, it was killing me! Then there it was, the result...just like we thought, she was on the high level team as before, which was great and a relief.

My hubby went upstairs to get our daughter so she could see the list. As he was upstairs, I continued to click on the results as I was surprised that there would be yet another result page? And there it was, her name on THE team list, the Stars!! What? We're we seeing things?? I know I was in shock, but my daughter was really in shock, a good feeling though. I printed out the pages of the two teams, yes two teams for this upcoming season. My hubby wasn't too thrilled about it, not because of the huge accomplishment, but practice times for both teams means five days of practice. This is a huge commitment, not only on the part of our daughter, but on our part as parents, we have to drive her to and from practice and the practices end at 9:00pm. I looked at my hubby and told him that we can do this, this is what our daughter has been working towards and though we are no longer spring chickens, we can hang in there and do it together.

It's going to be a very busy year for us, but it's also going to be a very exciting year for all of us. Way to go Kora, you strived to reach for the Stars and you did it!