Jillian with her coaches during a hot summer workout. Jillian is just to the right of the center behind Chen. She has a brace on her foot still from when it was broken in April. 

9-28-2004 Focus Journal

Jillian's Focus Journal came in today's mail. She loved it! The best part is that she can chart her daily progress and see how her energy level and attitude really do affect her practice. Today she set one of her goals to make 10 giants over the pit. After practice she will write in the actual number she makes. This book also gives her guidance in setting big goals and small ones. She can watch her small goals lead her to larger ones. What a great lesson! And she seems so receptive to it. I think she is at a good age (10) for enjoying this sort of record keeping. Her long term goal was to be written in first person as if it had already happened. Hers read, " It is September 2008 and I am a Level 10 gymnast".

Ready for USAG Level 7 

September 28, 2004 4am
It's the middle of the night in the middle of a terrible storm spinning off of the most recent hurricane. Weather keeps me awake. My husband thinks it's funny that I am so interested in weather. I feel energetic when there is substantial weather. And I get depressed when the weather stays the same for days at a time.

Something in the storm of this weather made me want to start to tell my story.

I am a Gym Mom.

That means I have a daughter who competes on a gymnastics team and so I spend countless hours involved in mental gymnastics myself. I am either taking her to practice or getting her ready to go to practice or feeding her.....packing her snack.....worrying about her at practice....talking to her about practice.....talking to her coaches about practice.....talking to other gym moms about practice.....or just talking to myself and trying to figure out why we are doing this.....and where we think we are going.

I realize the odds of my daughter becoming an Olympic gymnastics are not even worth calculating. But I will admit that I want her to be coached as if that were a real possibility. Because for me, the gym mom, every practice can be the olympics....if I close my eyes and just listen to the pounding of the beam when she lands. I don't need much encouragement to start imaging amazing possibilities.

Why do I want there to be something at the end of our days and nights in gyms and cars? Because this is hard. It is exhausting.....it is beautiful and insane and uplifting, heartbreaking, agonizing and unfair. But if nothing else, it is an extraordinary way to spend a life. And I should know....I'm a seasoned gym mom, having three children who have competed gymnastics during the past ten years. I've spent alot of time and alot of money on this family passion. And there are so many more like me. That is why I decided to begin to tell the story of our journey. By documenting my daughter's progress, maybe I can see it more clearly and enjoy reading of bright days when the doldrums come around. And maybe by recording my story I will be able to tell when I am in dangerous waters. I will keep myself grounded by watching the journey unfold.

Jillian and I relaxing at home 

Jillian, on right, with gym buddy, Sarah, as VIP guests to the TJ Maxx Gymnastics Tour of Champions. Sept. 2004