Rah, Rah, Ree, Kick Em In The Knee

Karma finally came back around to bite me in the butt.  After spending my entire high school and college careers making fun of cheerleaders, my daughter decided that she wanted to be a fairy-princess-CHEERLEADER-mommy.  Groan.  The research then started on cheerleading camps in our area.  Delightful.

I had heard through word of mouth that Chapin High School had a camp, and since my husband and I are CHS graduates, this seemed like a logical choice.  Easier said than done.  After googling every combination I could come up with I couldn't find out anything about the camp.  I actually accidentally stumbled upon a link to a registration form from the Chapin Elementary School webpage.  Go figure.  There was no age requirement listed, NO contact information whatsoever, and very few details on the form.  The form simply read, "return to the Chapin High School athletic office."  For those of you who don't know, Chapin High School is a wreck right now because of construction, but I piled all three kids in the car and headed up there to turn in my form before the deadline, since there was no mailing address listed.  After winding my way through constuction debris to the makeshift trailer that read "administrative office," I noticed a sign on the door that read, "closed due to construction."  Crap.  I then hoofed it up (with all three kids) to where the athletic office used to be over ten years ago when I had attended CHS.  You guessed it, NO ONE.  I finally decided to call CHS and inquire about where I should take the form.  The poor secretary was like, "I don't know.  I think they're holding it at Chapin Middle School.  Why don't you take it over there?"  To which I replied, "Because the form clearly states to return to the CHS athletic department.  I have a check to pay for the camp, and I want to make sure it gets to the right place.  I don't feel like driving all over town to register my child for cheer camp.  It's already been a very frustrating morning."  Then I got the, "Well ma'am, let me transfer you to the Athletic department."  No answer.  Surprise.  Off I drove to Chapin Middle School to try my luck again.  By this point it was lunch time, and all three kids were bickering and crabby.  Honestly, I was too.  Luckily, the staff was much more helpful at CMS, and I managed to get the little princess registered for Cheer camp.  Anything for our kids, right???

The camp was held for four days 9:00am-12:00pm, and the cost was $60, which included a T-Shirt and some crafts. On the first day (I had all three kids with me again) I squeezed my way into the over crowded CMS cafeteria with every other parent in Chapin.  I finally found a cheerleader who told me that if I had already registered I could weave my way to the OTHER end of the cafeteria to another group of cheerleaders.  We made it.  The cheerleader verified that we had preregistered and then led us down the hall to the other side of the school to where the gym was located.  Then, the cheerleader realized that my little pumpkin didn't have a name tag.  I guess she had been too busy trying to make sure she looked REALLY cute in her large toy sunglasses.  We then made our way all the back across the school to the cafeteria where she made one for my daughter.  Then, we made the journey back across America to the gym.  FINALLY--MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  My daughter arrived safely with the five year old group.

I arrived on time to pick up my daughter, because that's just how I roll, only to find that I needed a yellow slip of paper that matched my daughter's name in order to pick her up.  Well, I didn't get one of those.  It was apparently supposed to be given to me when I received my daughter's name tag, but if you recall, there was a bit of a mix up there and I didn't get one.  YES, we had to walk back and forth across the school 4 times, yes 4 in order to clear this up.  YES, I am hauling all of the kids with me.  NO, I am NOT HAPPY.  Happy that they won't let my daughter go home with just anybody, but annoyed that there was no organization.  When we finally found the director, she kind of rolled  her eyes as she shuffled through her paperwork to find my child's ID slip.  Guess I should have been grateful that she was so accomodating.  I don't understand how people make it through life without being ubber organized, and I don't have much patience for the lack of it.  And just for the record, no one checked my card for the rest of the week when I arrived to pick up my daughter.

Maybe it was my frustration with the program, but I wasn't really impressed with the attitudes of the cheerleaders either.  They were nice enough, but it just seemed that they had other WAY more important things to do.  I'm sure they did since they are teenagers, but they really should do their best to make those little girls feel special.  They forget how much little girls look up to them, and after all, I was PAYING them to be there with my child.   That, in my opinion, is something that stems directly from the coaches.  It is their responsibility to nip bad attitudes and make sure the teenagers know why they are there.

Overall, the program was OK.  The last day of the program the little girls did a small performance for the parents, which lasted WAY too long (about an hour) and there wasn't enough seating for the parents.  My daughter had a good time during the week though, which is about all I can say for it.

After this experience I was totally turned off to the whole cheer camp experience, but my daughter wasn't.  This prompted me to contact an old friend that is now the JV coach at Dutch Fork High School.  She gave some recomendations about more advanced cheer lessons, and also sent me a registration form for the DFHS cheer camp.  Clearly, I was hesitant about doing ANOTHER disasterous camp, but I fell for it.  Man, am I glad I did!  The registration form had all the information about the camp that a parent needed to know, AND it actually included names and contact numbers in case of problems or questions.  Seems like common sense, right??  The camp was the same as the other, $60 for a four day camp, 9:00am-12:00pm, and included a shirt.  Other than the problem of parking, once I entered the building registration was quick and easy.  Also, VERY organized and NOT crowded.  The camp had a good number of girls, but not TOO many.  The gym was located directly next to registration so I didn't have to walk to Kansas and back in order to drop off my child.  The cheerleaders actually seemed really excited to be there, and took their time to get the little girls excited too.  They greeted the girls with a smile every morning, and gave hugs and words of encouragement at the end of the day.  The performance at the end of the camp was about 30 minutes, which was enough time to display what the girls learned, but not too long for the younger siblings.  Basically it was everything that a parent could want from a short summer camp. 

If you live in the Irmo/Chapin area, I HAVE to recomend the Dutch Fork High School cheer camp for little girls interested in cheerleading.  Thank you for a great experience DFHS!  You will be seeing us again next year!

~Tyson