Our school is just now wrapping up their basketball season, which means that Tera is also wrapping up her first season on the Spirit Squad, which is basically a junior cheerleading program.
This is the first year that she has shown interest in being on an organized team for something, and we wanted to listen to her preferences and allow her to sign up. Tera loves to sit at home and read books, and doesn’t seem to be very drawn to athletic pursuits (at this point in time, that very well could change!), but she also loves to be with her friends and when she finds something that she is enthusiastic about, she is VERY enthusiastic about it.
Theo was the one who took some convincing, as he isn’t a huge fan of short skirts and some um…body movements….that seem to go hand and hand with cheerleading, but we discussed it and he was more than happy to give it a try!
It was an even bigger blessing when I got an email out of the blue one day that another generous family had offered to pay Tera’s fees to be on spirit squad. I have no idea who did this, but we sure are thankful!!!
Now that the season is wrapping up, I just wanted to write a little recap post. Tera ended up LOVING spirit squad and she did an amazing job working hard at practice and cheering her heart out at basketball games. The girls were SO sweet and had their cheers down so well! I was very impressed with all the cheers that they memorized and also the amazing volunteer coaches who made it happen!
The spirit squad cheered at all the junior high girls home games, so it was a nice little introduction to the world of sports. Theo and I and her brothers went to as many games as we could and enjoyed cheering on our Royals!
At the beginning of the game, they would make a spirit tunnel for the players to run through
And at halftime, the spirit squad names would all be announced and have some kind of little show. One night they even got to cheer at the high school varsity game and they got to do with the “big girl” cheerleaders. Another thing that we loved about the spirit squad program is that they were each given a “spirit sister”- basically a big sister that they got to work with and have a Christmas gift exchange, etc. Tera LOVED that and told me all about her spirit sister.
On varsity night, we invited some of our favorite people to attend 🙂 Theo and the boys were there, too, but since it was a later night, Theo had already taken those two boys home to bed!
Don’t mind me, just one million months pregnant. I gotta say, sitting in bleacher seats at this point in pregnancy was NOT a highlight of the season haha. Also, how am I in a life stage where I have both a 3rd grader and a pregnancy?
It was a great season and I’m very interested to see if Tera wants to do it all again next year! Our school is still just getting started and doesn’t have too many different sports or opportunities for the younger kids to be involved in, so this was a GREAT first start for us. Now Kiah really wants to play basketball!
What a great opportunity. This sounds so fun!