cheerful bean

despite the fact that i'm a horrible dancer and never was able to do a proper cartwheel, i was a cheerleader for a very brief period of time.  i loved it, and it was the most fun time of my high school years.  i wanted the teen to want to be a cheerleader too, but she had zero interest.  so guess what?

yup.  in addition to dance, gymnastics, golf and piano the bean is now on the game squad at school.  they practice once a week for an hour, and their first game was this week.

i pretty much died of the cuteness.

because we were stuck standing behind them, this is what the teen and i got to see for the first half of the game.

after a while, we managed to shift over to the side to get a different view.

the girls spent a lot of time standing there in "ready position" - basically with hands on hips and feet a little more than hip-width apart.  she did well, though, not fidgeting or screwing around like most of her cohorts.  we snickered a bit at this, though:

action shots!

there are two cheer squads at her school - the game squad, comprised of the younger girls who perform at home games and the local christmas parade, and the competition squad.  it's really cute to watch them interact - the older girls in the comp squad are so sweet to the littles, and the bean already has a couple of idols in the group.

of course, i got this:

i canNOT wait for that christmas parade.  i will probably melt into a puddle on the street.