"I'm thankful for..."

"Apple juice," said Katie.
"Crocodiles," said Finley..."I love crocodiles."
The holidays always open a window into kids little minds. I don't know if it's sensory overload or too much sugar, but it seems that kids are in rare form between October 21st or so until shortly after the 1st of the New Year.
I asked one of my classes what their favorite kind of food was to eat at Thanksgiving and Garrett said "I love to eat apples on Thanksgiving. I like them on other holidays, too...except Christmas." "Yeah," chimed in Joe "apples are my favorite thing to eat on Thanksgiving, too."
Whatever happened to pumpkin pie?
I had several kids say they liked "punkin pie"...but I didn't hear anyone say they liked pumpkin pie the most.
This holiday definately served to remind me that I am thankful for getting to spend the better part of my day with little people who's greatest concern in life is whether their Hannah Montana tatoo got messed up when they took a bath last night or whether their panties are hanging out of their leotard...who will tell you things like how their grammaw burnt the brownies because she left some plastic on them...who will look at you with a mischevious little grin after you give them a high-5 and say, "oops, I forgot to wash my hands"...THAT is what I am thankful for :)

Boys...yuck!

Yesterday, one of my team girls (Cottage Cheese) who is 8 years old mentioned something about a boyfriend.
"What?" I asked, "You have a boyfriend?"
"Yeah, I used to have a bunch but I broke up with the other ones," she said, matter-of-factly.
I just smiled and laughed...childhood romances are something I have yet to understand. About an hour later, I was coaching this same little girl on bars and the boys team came over to share some of the bars with us.
"Cottage Cheese, go share that bar with the boys and work on your kip hands," I said.
"Ew!" she exclaimed, "I might get boy cooties!!"
"Wait a minute...don't you have a boyfriend?" I asked.
She said, "Yeah, but I don't touch him!"
Ha! That just made me laugh. I guess it made me kind of relieved that when kids talk about having a boyfriend or girlfriend it means little more than that one party asked the other party and they said yes. They probably don't even talk to each other, come to think of it. I still don't really get the point, but it made me smile. One can only hope she'll feel the same when she turns 15!

Let There Be...

We are currently doing a segment on creation for our prayer theme with the kids. It's so cute to talk to the kids about what God made and to hear their answers. One of the coaches asked his class what God made on the first day. One of his little boys said, "swimmin' pools!" I always try to play a little guessing game with my kids if they don't know what God made on which day. For instance, I might ask what God made on the first day and then say, "it helps us see when it's dark". My favorite answer to that question is, "flashlights". Or when I tell the kids that on the 3rd day God made that stuff that we walk around on, since we can't walk on water. The most popular answer: SIDEWALKS!

On a different note, we recently received a little girl from a gym across town who got kicked out of their program. As the story goes, that gym changed their practice times to the mornings for the summer and this little girl couldn't make it because she lives an hour away and had no ride. So anyways, we got her. She's a little quirky, likes to talk a lot, and came with a huge fear issue of catching the high bar...but as things usually go, those kinds of kids are the most rewarding to coach. She has turned into one of my favorite kids. Just this week she got over her fear and is looking fabulous on all of the other events. One of our coaches knows some of the kids from the other gym and asked the other day if they knew this particular kid. Their answer was, "oh, you mean that stinky kid who won't catch the high bar?" I can't wait for that "stinky kid" to kick their booties at meets this season.

P.N.O.

It stands for "Parents' Night Out"...a night where the parents get to drop their kids off at the gym for 3 1/2 hours of mass pandemonium and head out for a night on the town or just a little peace and quiet at home. After tonight's experience, I can understand why each and every one of these parents needed a night out. Within the first 2 minutes of our first game, we had to give out 5 ice packs for fat lips, stubbed toes, and other sorts of boo boos. Then there were the kids who felt that they were above every rule. I'd say, "sit on the white line" and they'd make it a point to sit behind it. I'd say, "stay off the beams" and they'd make sure to get on them. If I had a dollar for every time I said, "if you can hear me clap once"...you get the picture.

Then there was the little girl from Russia who had some serious sensory issues. It took all of us just to make sure she wasn't running into something dangerous. Then was the kid who felt like she needed to touch you at all times, the little boy who followed me around all night telling me random bits of information like what kind of bugs he found in his backyard, and the sisters who bickered the whole time and then got mad when other kids told on them for fighting. And how could I forget? The drama queen that needed an ice pack every 5 minutes. There's also the kids who come up to you with some sob story every time you are picking someone to be "it" for a game. It seems as if all of the kids there have "never EVER gotten to be it EVER!!" Sad, sad story. Unfortunately, those don't faze me. We had the kids who went through 4 packs of crackers and several Dr. Peppers and kept asking if it was going to be snack time soon, the kids who were always asking what came next, the kids who hogged the trampoline saying "I haven't done five tricks yet!" after bouncing for 2 minutes, and the kids who wanted you to personally watch every turn that they took.

What a night.

Parents, I have one message for you: You got every penny's worth.

Where's My Mug?

I went to a restaurant tonight that had an impressive display of "career mugs" on sale. Essentially, they were coffee mugs that had a clever statement about a certain career printed on each one. For instance, the fisherman one said, "Old fishermen don't die, they just smell that way." Ew. Anyways, I perused through the career mugs to find that there was no such mug for gymnastics coaches, or any coach for that matter. However, flight attendants, teachers, golfers, plumbers, and even armchair sports fanatics all had clever little mugs.

I found myself a bit bitter, wondering why they'd left this passionate group of people out of the career mug display. I also wondered what the one titled "Coach" might say...here are some things I came up with:

• "Coaches aren't dreamers...they don't have time for sleep"
• "Wait a minute--you're telling me I get paid for this?"
• "This vein popping out in my forehead isn't just for decoration"
• "Coaches: Life's little reminder that your best is rarely good enough"
• "I'd scream at you, but I lost my voice yesterday when I was screaming at you"
• "Mediocrity is not in my vocabulary. I'm surprised I even know how to spell it since it doesn't exist."

So...what would your mug say?

"With Liberty and..."

Sydney told me that she knows the Pledge of Allegiance. She did a flawless job until she got to the very end and said, "with liberty and lettuce for all!" Corinna quickly corrected her, "It's liberty and justice for all."

Fiz was being her usual poky self the other day on bars. I sent her to share with another group, because things were a little crowded in the gym. I was half keeping one eye on her and noticed that she hadn't shown me anything in about 5 minutes. "Fiz, you need to bug me when you are ready to show, because I'll just assume you're being lazy...Have you even taken any turns?" I asked. "No," said Fiz with a little wry grin. I wanted to get mad, but her honesty just made me laugh.

Caitlin needed some help on her cast handstands the other day, but I was helping some other kids and told her that it would probably be a few minutes until I could spot her. She said, "That's okay, I'll just go waste time in the chalk." Ha!

Wynn (5 year old girl) came in the other day and said, "Ugh, I had such a dramatic weekend!" "What happened?" I inquired. "My brother had TWO people over to spend the night," she said.

My hair is naturally curly, but I'd straighted it out the other day before class. Louisa, one of my favorite curly-haired 4 year olds, came in and said, "What happened to your hair?" I told her I had straightened it. She said that she was going to ask Santa Clause for straight hair next hear. I tried to reassure her that curly hair was totally awesome, but I'm not sure she bought it...I'm going to make sure to wear my hair curly for her class next week.

One of my kindergym kids was doing her "free pass" on the trampoline yesterday and flew out like superwoman and sang, "I believe I can fly!" and then landed flat on her belly on the trampoline.

My kids have definitely kept me laughing this week and are teaching me never to underestimate the wit of small children :)

U-Haul

To be honest, I almost didn't blog this morning because blogging meant that my coffee, which has been a fixture in my left hand, would have to sit all alone on the coffee table. I have an emotional attachment to my coffee this morning. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I worked for 16 & 1/2 hours yesterday. Yeah...16.5 for those of you who don't do fractions. "Coach Rockstar," you ask, "why such a long day?"

Funny you should ask...

My boss needed help with a project yesterday and enlisted me and a few others to lend our muscles. The mission: Pick up a gym full of equipment from a gymnastics place going out of business and bring it to our location roughly 70 miles south eastish from said gym.

The day began at 7:45 a.m. when I dropped my boss off at the local U-Haul to pick up the 26-ft. trailer he'd requested. U-Haul man pulls around this P.O.S. U-Haul (seemingly from the World War II era) with--and I'm NOT exaggerating--a quarter of a million miles on it. Yep, that's right...252,252 to be exact. Before we even set out on our journey the boss man had to tighten the side mirrors, which were attached to the door by a thread. The 70 mile drive took over an hour and a half, with the clutch grinding in every gear and the passenger side door sounding as if it could fall off at any minute. We had to yell at each other to talk because it was so loud. (Side note...it was the first time in my life I'd ever been eye-to-eye with a trucker...it was a little creepy.)

So anyways, we get to our location, load up the U-Haul with lots of back-breaking work and creative engineering and send the truck back with 2 other guys who came to help. Their mission: drive the truck back, put all of the stuff in storage or in the current gym, and be back in 6 hours so we could load the rest of the stuff. In the meantime, the boss man and I grabbed lunch and got the rest of the equipment prepped for loading. The rest of the evening went off fairly according to plan, but we knew that something had to go wrong soon.

Problem #1: "We aren't going to fit all this stuff in here tonight...we'll have to come back tomorrow," my boss said, to the groans of those around him. Indeed, the U-Haul was packed to it's limit with a spring floor, foam, and various odds and ends.

Problem #2: "This ramp won't push back in." Alas, it would not. The U-Haul was loaded and ready to go, but the ramp was off its track. With a flashlight, some poking and prodding from underneath the truck, and some muscle, the ramp finally slid back into it's home under the trailer.

At this point, my boss and I got in his truck while our other 2 helpers, Tizzle and JoJo, climbed in the left-heavy U-Haul and headed back to our destination. My boss and I decided to stop at Jersey Mike's for a little din-din on the way home. It was almost 8:30, after all, and we were hungry. We went into the bathroom to wash our hands and when I came out, I looked at the yummy menu, contemplating my order. All of the sudden, boss man comes out of the bathroom on his cell phone and says,

Problem #3: "They just got pulled over by a state trooper. He says they don't have any taillights and he won't let them go any further." So much for Jersey Mike's. We bolted out of there like gangbusters and headed to the Food Lion parking lot where Tizzle and JoJo stood beside the U-Haul, perplexed. Apparently, this representative of Tennessee's Finest pulled them over, asked if it was their truck (which was humorous in and of itself, because it was a 26-foot U-Haul) and said that they don't have taillights and that he couldn't let them leave. Leaving no suggestions behind, the state trooper left to pull over some other unsuspecting driver and intimidate them with his big-brimmed hat. We were all starving, so the boss man suggested that we go to the Pizza Hut across the street and contemplate our next move over pizza. We locked up the U-Haul and headed to Pizza Hut.

Problem #4: "We can't locate a mechanic in your area," said the U-Haul customer service rep, "we'll call you back when we find one." We contemplated having the boss man drive his truck behind the U-Haul on the way home with his flashers on if we didn't hear back from the U-Haul people by the time the last piece of pizza was demolished. As fate would have it, the call came several minutes later, letting us know that a mechanic was on his way and would probably be there in about 45 minutes.

Problem #5: "Uh, this key has a crack in it," Tizzle said with a perplexed tone. So slowly and gently they put the key in the door, gave it a little turn and CRACK...it broke off in the door.

"For real?" you might ask, "are you making this up?"
Oh no...it gets better.

Problem #6: "Sir, I see that as a customer problem, not a U-Haul problem," said the condescending customer service rep at U-Haul. And that's where the polite dam broke and the flood waters of came cursing in. "WHAT?!" said the boss man. "DO YOU HEAR THAT? (insert sound of boss man kicking the U-Haul and things falling off of it here) THAT IS THE SOUND OF PIECES OF S#!% FALLING OFF OF THIS PIECE OF S#!% THAT YOU RENTED ME! YOU GAVE ME A TRUCK WITH A QUARTER OF A MILLION MILES ON IT AND YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT THIS IS MY FAULT?" "Well you should have noticed that there was a crack in the key," said the condescender, "why did you put a cracked key in the ignition?" "FIRST OF ALL, THE ONLY TIME THE KEY HAS LEFT THE IGNITION IS WHEN WE HAD TO LOCK IT UP BECAUSE WE GOT PULLED OVER BECAUSE THIS PIECE OF S#!% DIDN'T HAVE ANY WORKING TAILLIGHTS. SECOND, WHEN I RENTED THE TRUCK, THE GUY DROVE IT UP TO THE FRONT, I GOT IN IT AND DROVE IT AWAY AND EVERY TIME WE PARKED IT WE JUST LEFT THE KEYS IN THE IGNITION BECAUSE WE WERE RIGHT THERE LOADING UP THE TRUCK." "Sir I'm sorry, this is a customer problem. You will have to call the locksmith."

What followed were more tyrannical rampages that would make a sailor blush and continued noncooperation from the U-Haul representative.

Problem #7: "Well, it will take me about an hour to get there," said the locksmith. "How much will it cost?" I asked. "$100," answered the locksmith. By this time it was already 9:45 and we were all delirious. To pass the time, JoJo found a log book in the U-Haul with logs of all of the repairs in it. Some of the entries included: "Jimmy rigged" such and such, "No Bueno," "replaced engine," and "replaced log book."

Problem #8: "Looks like the problem is this crusty a$$ circuit breaker they got in here from 1988," said our totally cool hippie mechanic who fixed the problem by replacing said crusty a$$ circuit breaker with a new, crust-free one. We all got a kick out of the fact that when he opened the hood of the U-Haul, it was hard to see past the strands of duck tape hanging everywhere."

From there, the problems began to cease as the evening came to a close. The locksmith came near 10:45, just as the mechanic was leaving, to remove the broken key from the door and give us a working key. It was finally time to continue our journey home.

As if the U-Haul wanted to make one final statement, my boss saw the left break light blow out as we were pulling out of the parking lot in his truck. "I told you it was a piece of s#!%," said the boss man with more colorful variety that I'll chose to omit.

We finally rolled into our destination around 12:15 A.M, dirty, exhausted, and with great tales to tell.

That's why my coffee was reluctant to leave my hand this morning. It knows it's time to get up and face the beast. Hopefully this time the drama will stay behind.

When I Grow Up

"I want to be a princess when I grow up," said Summer.
"I want to be a mommy," Mary Kate said.
"I want to eat dinner," giggled Jolie.
"No Jolie...what do you want to BE when you grown up," I clarified.
With this, Jolie shrugged her shoulders.

It always makes me smile to hear what children want to be when they grow up. If good intentions are any indication, there will be no shortage of Walt Disney World employees and veterinarians in about 20 years.

Kacey wants to be Wonder Woman.
David wants to be Batman.
Julia wants to be a lion tamer.
Emily and Lauren want to be Mickey Mouse.
Still several more want to be doctors.
Bivi wants to work at Old Navy and wear one of those headsets.

I think when I was their age I'd made up my mind to be an artist. At the time, it probably sounded more promising than if I'd said I wanted to be a gymnastics coach. One of the most refreshing things about children is that they haven't lived long enough to talk about what they think they should do...they are only interested in following their heart and doing what they think would be the coolest thing on earth. Maybe some of us should try that sometime.

We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do!!

We've got spirit, how 'bout you? It's the week of our upper level's State Meet and every day thus far has had a different theme. Tonight was by far the most fun with "crazy hair" as the theme. Some had multiple ponytails. Some spray painted blue and gold. Some had their hair looking like they were on a high fashion European catwalk. I stuck popsicle sticks in my hair with blue and gold stars attached...it was interesting, and almost impossible to explain. Maybe I can figure out how to put a picture on this thing so you can see it for yourself. One of our male staff had little ponytails all over his head. And one of our team kids had a little pouch of Jolly Ranchers hanging from her ponytail (which was sticking straight up in the air, I might add) just in case she got hungry during practice.

Ah, the joys of spirit week.

On a different note, I have a couple more funny quotes:

One of our younger team kids said, "Sometimes when I run for vault, snot comes out my nose."

I'm not exactly sure what spawned this next question, but Garret pondered aloud, "Coach J.T., remember when you told me you had a penguin in your freezer...were you telling me the truth about that?"

One more point to ponder: I've found this week that children are highly motivated when you bribe them with rice cakes. Who'da thought?

Quotables

Kids will say the darndest things. Sometimes they aren't even THAT funny, but they make me smile. I thought I'd share some with you.

Yesterday I overheard one of my little girls that was waiting for class reading the posted signs to her grandma. Here's how she interpreted the one that says: "Please keep your children off the wall":
Summer said, "Please keep your chickens off the wall."
Thanks, Summer...we'll keep that in mind just in case we bring our chickens to the gym with us.

Mary Kate was pumped yesterday due to her mother's incentive:
"If I don't pee pee in my pull-up for the WHOLE DAY I get a toy!!"

Audrey was about to show me a skill she'd been working on and I asked her, "Audrey, is this going to be any good or should I just come back later?" She said "I'm gonna rock your world."

Then there's Fizz who yelled my name across the gym in her little country accent. I said, "What, Fizz?" She goes, "I forgot." Five minutes later...the same thing. I think she just wants an excuse to yell across the gym.

Caroline calls my boss, "Coach with no hair"

The twins wanted to pray for their dad, because "everytime he goes to the bathroom he has diahrea."

Tater-tot said, "My mom said having a baby is kinda like having to poop, except it comes out the other hole and you have to push a lot harder."

Needless to say, every day in Coach Rockstar's world is an adventure :)

Nicknames

What we call someone says a lot about who that person is. For instance, in the Bible, names weren't just picked out of thin air...they were chosen for a reason. I have found that children are extremely picky about what they are called.

I joke with my kids all the time. I call them stinkers and turkeys and all sorts of colorful descriptors. Once I was calling one of my kids a muscle woman because she did something that took a lot of strength. She looked at me with an exasperated look on her face and said, "I'm not a muscle woman...I'm a muscle girl." Duh Coach Rockstar, I mean SERIOUSLY.

I had a boy try my class several weeks ago for the first time and he came out with a name tag that said "Ian"...only the "Ian" was scratched out and "Sergio" was written in its place. This one "Sergio" informed me that his full name was actually "Sergio Monster Truck" but I could just call him Sergio.

One of my classes has 2 Sydneys in it. I asked if I could call one of them Sid so as not to get them confused with one another. Of course they both wanted to be called Sid, so I had to convince one of them to keep her full name for convenience sake. The next week, Sid no longer wanted to be called Sid but now wanted to go by her formal name of Sydney. Unfortunately, by now Sydney did not want to be called Sid either. I ended up having to resort to the first and middle name approach (thank goodness those were not the same!)

My team kids seem to think it is a fatal faux pas when I forget to call them by their nickname. It's almost as if acquiring a nickname is a sort of rite-of-passage. We have Skipper, Fiz, Dorito, Cottage Cheese, Chicky, Jellyfish, Falarah, and Rocky (just to name a few). Sometimes they are totally random (like Dorito and Cottage Cheese). Sometimes they are an adapted form of the child's real name (like Falarah and Fiz). Sometimes they have to do with a certain identifiable characteristic (Skipper is flexible like a Barbie doll, Jellyfish is kinda wiggly and sweats a lot). Sometimes it's their last name with a "Y" attached to it. Whatever the origin might be, nicknames are highly sought after and coveted by all.

Maybe that's why I like it when the kids call me Coach Rockstar...

Prayer Requests

Today was Terrible Tuesday...the longest work-day of the week for me. While it is easy on days like today to feel overwhelmed and fried, I am often reminded that kids can brighten the most frightful of days. I was taking prayer requests in my last Kindergym class of the day, and here's how it went:

I said, "Alright kiddos...before we get started, do any of you have something you want to pray for?"
Hands waved frantically all around our little semi-circle. Still, most spoke overzealously out of turn.
"I want to pray for houses," boasted Matt.
"I want to pray for bugger and eyeballs," Catie chimed in.
Still more wanted to pray for dead pets and so forth.
Finally, I got around to calling on Ella.
"Yes, Ella?" I inquired.
Ella said, "I want to pray for my grandma because she's sick. Her name is grandma."
"Okay Ella," I said, "we'll pray for your grandma named grandma."
We bowed our heads and I began praying for all of the things the kids had requested and ended with a resounding "Amen!"
"I peeked a little," admitted Matt, while Sarah bragged, "Oh yeah, well I had my eyes open the whole time."

My oh my, how prayer can be an adventure :)

Here Goes Nothin'

My friend the "wordy woman" has recently inspired me to try out this whole blogging thing. Truthfully, I wanted to post a comment on her blog and it wouldn't let me do that without creating a blog account of my own. So hey, what the heck (I thought), let's not let this account go to waste like that myspace account I signed up for months ago and haven't touched. After all, maybe this will serve as a creative outlet for my professional endeavors: The Adventures of Coach Rockstar.

The kids I work with do crazy things everyday and most of the time I forget about them because I never write them down. Like today, for instance...one of my girls (we like to call her Fizz) who has a uniquely keen sense of smell was doing her leg lifts and hopped down in the middle.
"Fizz, are you finished?" I asked.
"No, I have 6 more," Fizz replied in her little country accent.
"Why did you hop down before you were finished?" I asked, exasperation building.
"Cuz it stinks over there!" Fizz informed me.
"What does it smell like?" I inquired.
Fizz just looked at me with that mischievous little grin her face knows so well and said, "I TOOTED!!"

Ah, children. You just never quite know what is going to come out of their mouths...or their...yeah, anyways.

So that's my first little tale from The Adventures of Coach Rockstar. Stay tuned...there will be more where that came from.