My beautiful sister

I was an only child growing up. My mother and father worked full time, and I was in school all day and at gymnastics practice every night. We lived a very busy life, and I never even had time to feel lonely or to be overly spoiled (but I was a little spoiled). When I was still a little fetus in my mom's stomach, they realized that her uterus was shaped oddly, and that I was only able to grow in about a fourth of the uterus. The pregnancy was difficult, but I was born full-term and healthy. My mom on the other hand, barely made it. She almost bled to death and had to have an emergency hysterectomy just minutes after I was born. Her heart stopped beating multiple times and she was very, very sick. Needless to say, she couldn't have any more children and she was heartbroken. When I was 10, my parents told me that they had decided to adopt a baby from China, and that I would have a sister soon. The adoption process actually took four more years after that. But on October 3rd, 2008 I met my sister, Lidia Faith Coan, for the first time. In that moment I knew what it felt like to love someone else more than you could ever possibly love yourself. I felt the strongest type of love and the strongest need to protect her and keep her safe. Since that day, we have been best friends. She is the most beautiful, sweet, creative, and compassionate child I have ever met (though I may be biased). She was only a year and a half old then, and was extremely underweight and delayed in speech and gross and fine motor movements. She is now 7 and a half years old and is in the second grade. She is not delayed in any areas anymore, in fact she is so intelligent that it's scary. I love her more than anything in this world, and I'm so incredibly proud to be able to call her my sister. 

Cheerleading... It's not that easy

I am a member of the Appalachian State Cheerleading team. I am a junior, so this is my third year of being on the cheerleading team. I think that cheering on a college team is a lot more difficult and time consuming than most people would think. I was a gymnast for 10 years, and almost all gymnasts hold those stereotypes about cheerleaders: they're dumb, they can't count past eight, they aren't even the slightest bit athletic, and they only care about their hair and makeup. But then when I couldn't do gymnastics anymore because of back injuries, I decided to give cheerleading a go. I mean, how hard could it be? Much harder than I ever thought. I did competitive cheerleading for Charlotte Allstars, and I did high school cheerleading too. Still though, that didn't prepare me for college cheerleading. On top of college classes just being hard, we work out at 6am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We also practice on MWFs at night, where two hours is dedicated to stunting/tumbling/pyramids, and the last hour is dedicated to running and conditioning. Then, we cheer in football games on Saturdays (9 hours total for us), volleyball games during the week, and we make appearances at fundraisers and events. During basketball season we cheer for doubleheaders on Thursdays and Saturdays (6 hours total), and wrestling matches too. During the Spring we also host a lot of fundraisers, camps, and open practices. Try outs are coming up soon (April), so we are really looking for new people currently! I guess the biggest thing I learned from my own experience is that just because cheerleading is supposed to look easy, does not mean it is! That's the art of it really. Defying gravity, doing skills that others could never do, and making it look like a walk in the park.   

My Hedgehog

I recently became the mother of a female hedgehog that I named Penelope. She is just over five months old currently, but I got her when she was about 1.5 months old. She is an African Pygmy Hedgehog which is a domesticated hybrid breed that originates from the four-toed hedgehog mixed with the Algerian hedgehog. There are 19 breeds of hedgies worldwide! African Pygmy hedgehogs (APHs) are not found in the wild at all. Being a hedgehog mother has definitely been a learning curve. Honestly, I originally wanted a hedgehog just because they were so cute, and because I wanted a puppy here but my parents said no. Little did I know, Penelope is much more difficult to care for than you'd think. There are entire books on hedgehog ownership, because it really is that complicated. I've had to do so much research on hedgehogs to learn how to properly care for her. First of all and most importantly, APHs require a constant temperature of around 73-82 degrees fahrenheit. This is because they have the instinct to hibernate in low temperatures, which seems alright until you read that APHs will die from hibernation. Since they are not in the wild and they are housed inside, they can't tell when "winter" is coming, so they can't prepare for hibernation (extra eating and drinking). This means that the hedgie could fall into a state of "sleep" that they will not wake up from, resulting in death. Additionally, APHs are nocturnal. This means I can't just wake her up during the day to play. I guess I could, but she would be very grumpy just like any of us would if we were woken up in the middle of the night. I have to get her out for cuddles and treats at 9pm or later. I will be posting much more information and stories about my hedgehog I'm sure, because I just love the little sea urchin so much. :)