Jo had her first skating competition on Saturday. Unfortunately, on Friday morning she woke up with a sore throat. She hates taking medicine of any kind (I blame the appendix). She muscled through school until noon dismissal and then an afternoon skating practice and collapsed into bed.
Saturday morning, she was feverish and felt even worse. I called her coach and said that she couldn’t come to the competition, even though she really wanted to. She choked down some Tylenol but refused to eat anything because it hurt too much to swallow. Then her coach called back and said “Is she puking? Because if she’s not, I really, really need her to come.” Instead of having to be at the rink from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., she could show up shortly before her team’s performance, and leave immediately after.
So I yanked that poor kid’s hair into a bun and wrapped her in a blanket and took her to the rink, where we stepped into a parallel universe. One where girls wear track suits and tons of makeup, and mothers sew fake hair onto their girls’ heads. (I mean they really had needles and thread. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? The end result looked so messy and ugly, too. They had their real hair pulled into buns and then all these extensions sticking out randomly from the bun.)
When my poor sick little kid took the ice it was all I could do not to cry. She not only got through the program, she remembered all the little details, like hand movements and facial expressions.
(No pictures because in the chaos, I forgot the camera.)
And her team came in fifth.
Oh well! We get to do it all again next month. At least at that event, Jeff and I don’t have to put in two hours of rink setup and three hours of traffic control (him) and five hours of selling hot dogs at the concession stand (me). We get to be the visiting team. Wish us health and luck.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Poor baby! What a trooper. I loved seeing the newspaper pics.
That’s a lot of parent labor there. . . all in our future too, I’m sure.
That last paragraph sent chills up my spine. Why on earth did you have to sell the hot dogs? Or do traffic control? That’s crazy.
Was she at least happy about being there, when all was said and done?
What an amazing kid — to pull through when she’s feeling that awful. She must be really proud of herself.
To support my son’s ski racing we have to volunteer 15 hrs for the year, which seemed like a lot until I read about your commitment! Yikes.
Poor baby. Poor parents.
Lots of wishes for good health. And good luck, too!