...it's probably best.  :)

Lainie earned an 8.1 on floor (her best floor score ever! That connected roundoff/back handspring works wonders), an 8.75 on vault, a 6.35 on bars, and a 7.55 on balance beam.  Honestly, I'm just so proud of her.  She did her best, she didn't get crazy nervous, and she was thrilled with her scores.  She worked with a coach who is not her coach...in a gym she's never been in, with less sleep than she has ever had in a night and then been expected to function.  She rocked it.  

Here's where Mindy gets...I don't know.  Irritated or something.  At the end of last season, the coaches and owner at Lainie's gym decided to bump all of last season's level 4 girls up to beginner prep. opt. level, meaning they would all skip level five altogether, and move to the other gymnastics program in the US, which basically allows the girls to begin optional routines much more quickly than USAG allows...thus giving more variety, allowing them to work with their strengths, and I'm convinced...partially to relieve coaching staff and gym owners of living through the same music over and over and over...to infinity...or insanity.  The downside of this for Lainie and her friend Maura is that they both could use an extra year at level four.  For the experience, for the skill progressions, for all of it.  I haven't decided if the coaches/owner chose this course to keep the girls from feeling badly about not being moved up, or to get more money out of us...I don't know...but this week, I'm going to ask.  Today Lainie competed routines and events she hasn't touched in literally months.  She performed at a level very comparable to the level at which she competed in April.  Which, I mean, really...is fine.  Except for the fact that over the summer, she spent 10 hours a week in the gym...at no small cost...and right now, she's in the gym for 8 hours a week...I mean, really...wouldn't you expect improvement in form?  In skills?  In strength?  Her bar routine has literally not changed since last season.  There are 7 skills in the routine.  2 of them, she can't do at all--the coach does it for her.  She couldn't do those same skills when she started at this gym last fall.  The one skill she got...that roundoff/back handspring.   I'm thrilled with that and so is she...but for the amount of time she's at the gym...sigh.  I don't know.

In this situation, I know that I have crazy expectations.  I coached.  I competed.  I get it.  I know what it takes to improve...that it's a combination of coaches' efforts, student discipline and perseverance, strength training, time in the gym.  I realize that it all has to fit together and work together, and fall into place, and that Lainie plays a big part in this.  BUT.  She can only do what she's told to do.  She can only improve if she has instruction that allows for improvement.  If she doesn't get her front hip circle...she's never going to get her kip.  She can't do prep. opt. until she gets her kip.  She makes the exact same mistake on her back extension roll that she made 2 years ago when I was coaching her at the Y and couldn't get her to fix it.  After a year of 5-10 hours a week in the gym.  She still doesn't consistently point toes or work to keep knees straight or fight to keep tight if she bobbles on the beam.  

...k.  I'm going to shut up now.

I'm so proud of her.  She was totally fine with how she did.  Totally fine.  I just have to let some of that go.  At the same time...I'm not going to send her 8 hours a week if she's literally not making any advances in her skills.  

Oy.  I have 3 days to figure out what to say to her coach.  Wish me luck.

Low Points:  (listing these first, so that I can end with the positives)

: : Awful hotel room in Largo.  Ugh.  

: : Texts from my mom alerting us to the fact that Chelsea (our 12-year-old Golden Retriever) was in really, really bad shape...and they weren't sure she was going to make it until we got home. 

: : Stupid. Freaking. Camera.

: : Finding out it would cost us $600 to ship home the 140 pounds of wild boar Seth shot on a hunting trip with his dad the first day we got there.  Realizing we would have to figure something else out...

: : Tired, tired kids.  Who am I kidding??  Tired, tired adults!!  Without considering the amount of running, the different surroundings, lack of normal betimes, etc, the serious downside of having a bed that you absolutely love is that you despise sleeping in anything other than your bed, because you know that you won't sleep like you do in your own bed.  Maybe we should go back to the uncomfortable, sagging-in-the-middle mattress so that we can look forward to hotels!!  Oh, and snoring.  Snoring really messes with adults' sleep.  Especially this adult.

: : Whiney kids.  Lainie was SURE that every ride would be too scary for her.  EVERY SINGLE RIDE.  Reasa was positive she was getting dehydrated.  I mean, it was 90, and we were in the sun. The drama of pre-adolescence might make me lose my mind yet.  Bryson...he just flipped out whenever I didn't respond immediately when he spoke to me.  Do you know how difficult it is to respond immediately to every request or comment in Disney World surrounded by thousands of people and your husband and three kids??

: : Frustration over job things while I was away.  Just too soon in the job to be away for two weeks.  Sigh.

: : An unexpected visitor on our vacation.  

: : My lack of patience with the kids' Webkinz voices on the way home.  Oy.  Wanted to scream!!!