Fun with the Finger's: Cohen Twirls "Between the Hedges!"

Last Saturday was a BIG day for Cohen! She got to twirl at the Georgia game "between the hedges" for Uga's Auxiliary Day. She has been so excited for this for months now and even having to get up at 5:30 am didn't bother her. I think that bothered me more than her! We were worried she would be so tired and Saturday evening she was, but that morning she hopped right up and was ready to go! We all headed down to Athens for practice, which started at 7, at the practice fields. It was so cold that morning! Kelly and Brock dropped Cohen and me off and I got her registered and ready to practice. A few weeks earlier they had emailed the auxiliary day routine for the girls to start learning Cohen had worked on it a little and was ready to practice it. Since she was there as an individual twirler she was in a certain group with other individuals. After they got stretched they separated the groups from the individuals and everyone started warming up with tricks. Cohen was by far one of the youngest there and was a little overwhelmed at first. After a few minutes she looked at me with these lost eyes like she was wondering what to do. I was thinking they would start with the routine any minute so I motioned her to come over and see what was wrong. She started crying saying she just wanted to watch because she didn't know what to do. I started talking to a lady near me who I recognized because she had been a judge at one of the baton competitions we had been at before. She was telling me that the individual girls could perform a solo that they knew on their own since they weren't there with a group. I thought this would be even better than doing the routine they had sent since Cohen could do her competition solo that she knows by heart! Problem solved right? Wrong! Cohen was still upset wanting to do the routine she had learned on the video...hmmm. This sweet lady even recognized Cohen and was asking her to show her some of her favorite tricks. Not working for Cohen either. I was starting to get a little worried on how this would work out. Something she was so excited about and now was so scared. I have learned that when Cohen knows a plan she wants to stick to the plan and not change it especially last minute. I kept talking to her telling her it would be like her being a "feature" twirler but she wasn't having it. Kicking into full mommy mode on needing to fix this little issue I started looking around and I saw some girls doing THE routine that was on the video. SOOOO....I told Cohen to stand still I would be right back and I headed over to talk to the majorette working with that group and their instructor. It turns out that this was a group of 5, 6, and 7 year olds from George Walton who were doing the routine that had been emailed and the instructor was so incredibly sweet. She asked if Cohen would like to join in with them. Every ounce of sadness and fear immediately faded from Cohen's face and she said "yes!" Since these girls were all her age she told me that she wanted to do this not only because of getting to do the special "routine" but because she could meet new friends. That made it all worth it and the problem was solved. YAY!
Kelly and Brock walked up at about this time and had avoided all of this. Children don't always make things easy but I know she is still so little and I can only imagine what she had been feeling. Its easy to treat your kids like small adults sometimes and a good wake up call like that is needed. Now I would have thought twirling in front of 80,000+ people would be a little scary for a 6 year old but in Cohen's words, "this is totally awesome". They took a big group picture of everyone and you can see that Cohen was all smiles :)

warming up at practice

After practice we had a lot of time to kill. We ate breakfast, looked in the bookstore, and then made our way to the Dawg walk. Being there so early has some advantages, Cohen and Brock would be on the front row ready to hit hands with all the players. Cohen & I also took some selfies while killing time :)

After the Dawg Walk we headed to the stadium. Blake, Taylor, Mama, and Suzy were already there. I love being able to have Cohen and Taylor at a game together. Its crazy to see how much they grow from year to year. I hope that we can continue going to the games together and that our kids will love it as much as we do!

You can see that it had warmed up by the time the game started and we were having to shed some layers! I took Cohen down to meet everyone during the 2nd quarter. Parents couldn't go on the field to watch and watching from the hedges isn't the best view. She was going to be in the end zone so I decided to go to that end zone and watch from a random empty seat :) I had a great view of her so it worked out really well. Mama and Suzy went with me and both could see her great. I took a few pictures. She did an awesome job and was all smiles when she came back to our seats afterwards. She was telling me that she loved twirling and got to see Uga's doghouse. I'm so glad she had a good time and I'm pretty sure she is going to want to do this again! Who knows we may have a future Uga twirler on our hands. IF so we will have these pictures and this story to look back on! And of course it was a big GA win! GO DAWGS!