A-W-E! S-O-M-E! We're awesome! We're awesome! Like to-tal-ly!

So after Kid Gleemonex's first day of first grade yesterday (she LOVED it and is thrilled to death with her classroom, her teacher, and the one friend from last year who's in the same class, yaaaaaaaaaay!), we are driving past her future high school on the way to get some ice cream for a first-day treat. There's a large knot of San Dimas High School cheerleaders ambling up the road, in uniform (which of course is how we know what their deal is). Kid Gleemonex has a slight interest in cheerleaders, I think because she likes costumes. She says to me, "I think those are cheerleaders."

I say, "Yeah, looks like it."

She says, "Huh." Considering. "Were you a cheerleader?"

"Noooooo! My mom and sister were, though. I never wanted to -- well, no, in 6th grade, I tried out for 7th grade cheerleader [ten-minute digression on tryouts, which are like auditions, but in front of the whole school in this case] -- anyway, I tried out, mostly because everybody else seemed to be doing it, and then I didn't make the team, and I was disappointed for like that one day, but then after I was SO GLAD I didn't -- my gosh, it takes up SO MUCH TIME. And besides, it's -- at least these days, it's a legit sport, it's very very athletic, but I still don't like that it's mostly girls cheering on a bunch of boys who actually play the sports."

Kid G. nods, thoughtful. (The traffic is horrendous, we've gone like a hundred yards in 15 minutes, remind me never to go past a high school at 3:30 in the p.m.)

"I don't want to do it, either."

Me, doing what I always do, qualifying and overexplaining everything, in this instance mostly because I fear her, ten years from now, doing a thing I loathe just to rebel against me: "Well -- you know, if it's something you really, really want to do when you're older, we'll talk about it then ..."

Definitively: "No, I don't want to. It's OK."

That's my girl, y'all. That's my girl.