When did you get to be so big, son?
You are as long as the bathtub!
Soaking in the bubbly suds,
You still ask me to help
wash and rinse your hair.
Happy to help:
You’re still my
baby.
Love!

The littlest monkey boy, age 6-1/2 (because half-years are important, you know!), started reading his first chapter book tonight: “The Knight at Dawn,” from Mary Pope Osborne’s “Magic Tree House” series. I guess it’s time to box up the “baby” books to give away to the church nursery!

I’m proud of him but still a wee bit melancholy. It is a joy watching each of the boys reach various milestones in their development, but there’s something different about the last one reaching the same milestones. It’s a moment in time that will never be repeated.

Regarding my last post, I have a couple of more questions:

1. What if you enjoy being on the pep squad and have no aspirations of being a varsity cheerleader? After all, the JV teams need someone rooting for them, too. It might be like, say, going to Regional State College instead of Ginormous Land-Grant U. Is there anything wrong with that? I can’t see the problem, if there is.
2. Maybe the problem isn’t the participants at all; perhaps it’s the coaches. No matter how much you love being in colorguard, if your coach is trying to turn the group into a frou-frou drill team, you have little choice but to stick it out in misery, somehow adapt your goals in contrast to your scruples or quit the squad.

Bear with the following analogy, which is a throwback to high school, but it helped me to wrap my head around some things that are frustrating me. I can’t discuss it openly, so we’ll beat around the bush with some tongue-in-cheek humor.

I should note that I participated in pep squad and colorguard, so this hypothetical example is personal to me on several levels. I should also note that I had a few friends who were cheerleaders and others who were on drill team. Not all of the girls were pretentious snobs, though I will go out on a limb and say that most (but not my friends) were.

The pep squad is like a remedial class for cheerleading. They do a fine job at keeping team spirit alive, but they’re always at the Junior Varsity games. They don’t get a shot at the big time.

The cheerleaders are popular, of course. Everyone knows their names, their uniforms and their chants. They are easily recognizable and get a lot of coverage in the yearbook.

Among the groups we’re discussing, the colorguard is unique. They march, dance, wear uniforms (though varied from week to week) and demonstrate specialty skills in flag twirling and even wooden rifles or sabers. They practice long hours and are a closely knit group. They aren’t as popular as the cheerleaders, and they often get mistaken for band members.

The drill team is flashy and elite, and they know it. They are the toe-heel walkers … you know the ones … they bounce their ponytails as they walk and stand at parade-rest in the hallway.

Then, there are the solo baton twirlers. There are only a couple of them, and they are the feature of the halftime show. It’s rather pointless to aspire to become one, because they’ve been practicing twirling plastic rods since before you could walk.

It’s possible to move from the pep squad to cheerleader or from colorguard to drill team, but it is a difficult transition. It takes practice, effort, sweat and money. New routines to learn, new tryouts to attend, new uniforms to buy. Can it happen? Sure, it happens. But, the colorguard ought not to look down its nose at the pep squad while thinking that it is on par with the drill team. Do what you do well, and leave the critiques to the judges at Nationals.