Baby, I’m Amazed…

Gracie never ceases to amaze me. Ever. I’m serious.
She is brave and so full of life. Where did that fearlessness come from? 

Gracie’s teacher is on a roller derby team. The Tahoe Derby Dames. Her team name is, “Sister Slayer”, she is also the team captain. They all wear fishnets and short skirts and the majority of the “dames” have Betty Page hairdos. (not sister slayer’s, shes got a blonde bob)

Tons o’ Tatoooos, as well.
It’s an entire culture that I didn’t really know existed before this year. It beats the Tahoe Hippie Funks, anyday. The derby culture appears to bathe on a regular basis. Which, we can all agree, is a good thing.

So today we went to our second “bout” of the year. Gracie and Maddy (her sweet friend) made signs to hold up to cheer on their teachers. Did I mention that their teacher’s assistant is on the Derby Dames, as well? She goes by the lovely moniker of “Scarlet<Fire”. Not sure what the inverted arrow thingie is all about, but that’s her name.

Live Roller Derby is hilarious to watch. They make mean faces at each other and knock each other down. It’s all elbows and clusters of girls toppling over each other. Girl on Girl is what they advertise. They did not let us down. Lots of dog piles, crashing into the teams on the bench, flying over the hay bales, etc. 

This weekend the opposing team came from Fresno. The Fresno girls were a bit rough with our Dames, so Gracie and Maddy were up in arms. It was a riot to see Gracie and Maddy screaming at the white team to “be NICE to Mrs. Terpening!”. 

The last time we saw them skate there was a great belly dance halftime show. Gracie and Maddy were mesmerized by the costumes and the movements. Today’s halftime show was supposed to be fire dancers. Apparently, they didn’t get the memo and never showed up. For some reason, they had a bunch of hula hoops and decided to have an impromptu hula hoop contest for halftime. 

They had about 15 hoops and offered them to the crowd of about 200 people. Gracie and Maddy were two of the five that were fearless enough to get out on the track and wiggle their hips! Gracie rocked it. Seriously. The entire place was in hysterics. She could not be stopped. 

There were the two 6 yr olds, two kids that looked to be about 10-11 and then a 20-something girl. They all had dropped their hoops multiple times while Gracie just gently swayed her hips and kept it rocking. People were commenting how she could lull them to sleep because she was so in the groove and not gyrating all over the place. She has a sweet move, I must admit.

She started to get a little cocky and was walking around in a very small circle as she continued to hula hoop. Going from side to side and playing to the crowd. The crowd went wild! Screaming and cheering and whistling. She started moving faster. Louder cheers. Her teachers were on the sidelines cheering her on, shouting her name! She started making her circle a little bigger. I don’t think that her smile could have been any bigger. She was bathing in the applause and adulation. Soaking it up.  It was like she had grown ten feet tall.

After about ten minutes, the announcer called it quits and asked the crowd to cheer the loudest for the winner. The crowd went wild for “the little girl in the black sweatshirt”! The announcer told her to go to the Derby Dames booth and she could pick out anything that she wanted! 

She started walking off the track to get her prize, still HULA HOOPING! The crowd went wild and the announcer bet her that she couldn’t walk around the entire track while hula hooping. So she did.

All. the. way. around. the. track. Hula. Hooping. 
For real.

She is my hero. I laughed until I cried. Karl had tears in his eyes. We were so proud and so in awe of her. Where did she come from. She doesn’t really need us. This is her world and she’s not afraid to live in it. 

I wish that I could convey just how magical that ten minutes was. I wish you could have been there and seen my sweet girl face a crowd of 200+ and put smiles on their faces. She’s pretty powerful.

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