WAG A new anxiety I wasn't prepared for...

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notthatmom

Proud Parent
DD's first meet is in January, then she has two more in Jan, three in feb and one in March, that doesn't include states which is at the end of March. I am going crazy not knowing the exact date she competes. Holy cow. I'm more worried about when I'm going to find that out than I am how she's going to do at the meets. Im a planner by nature, actually part of my job is event planning. I've booked multiple hotels for our "travel" meet just in case, as well as one of our local meets because historically her level competes early in the morning on a Friday. I'm driving myself nuts more than I thought I would. Who's with me!?!
 
ROFL. Honestly, I got used to that years ago. Travel meets, I book Thurs- Mon. as I know they can compete early Friday or late Sunday, and I want to get it planned. So sometimes we are there way to long, and sometimes we are barely there when he competes. For local ones, I just wait it out.

The best is when you have a schedule and they change it 3 days before. Had that happen with 2 travel meets. It was good I had book THurs-Mon because we were able to adjust, but some had to pay a lot more to cover the change
 
Funny. Just wait until others ask you about when her meets are and your response is that you don't know. Some will even just offended thinking you don't want to tell them. Just keep all your weekends open. This is part of the ride. :)
 
ROFL. Honestly, I got used to that years ago. Travel meets, I book Thurs- Mon. as I know they can compete early Friday or late Sunday, and I want to get it planned. So sometimes we are there way to long, and sometimes we are barely there when he competes. For local ones, I just wait it out.

The best is when you have a schedule and they change it 3 days before. Had that happen with 2 travel meets. It was good I had book THurs-Mon because we were able to adjust, but some had to pay a lot more to cover the change
It's even better when the schedule changes the night before the meet (when we were already on our way to the hotel, luckily).
So far this season, we did have one meet change from a 2 day to a 1 day … luckily the change was announced 11 days in advance and only affected one group.
 
I am with you! I can mostly deal with not knowing whether a session is Saturday or Sunday. I am willing to book a hotel and cancel if necessary. But there are three things I can't stand:

1. Having to tell family, the Girl Scouts, etc. that we are not sure of our schedule for a particular weekend because we know she has a meet but we won't know when the session will be until a week or two ahead of time.
2. The possibility of a Friday session. Hey, meet organizers, guess what? Many parents have to work to pay your meet fees! Some of us have to travel and can't easily refuse to schedule travel on eight Fridays out of every year because we might need to take our child to a meet that day. And those kids who are competing in your meet? They have to go to school.
3. The fact that schedules are never released before the withdrawal deadline.
 
I plan to leave Thursday night and get home wee hours of the morning Monday for drivable meets. and Wed-tues for travel meets / flights.
Its almost a bonus to compete Friday at noon as then your weekend is all free b/c you have blocked it out;)
I just cancel the extra hotel days once the schedule is released.
PS. I love meets that give a travel schedule early so you don't know which session but it narrows it down to a day or two.
 
I think I deal with this by mentally blocking out the whole weekend. When it get closer then I start looking at if there is anything else we can schedule around the meet or if one parent must take one kid to their activity and the other goes to the meet.
 
I am with you! I can mostly deal with not knowing whether a session is Saturday or Sunday. I am willing to book a hotel and cancel if necessary. But there are three things I can't stand:

1. Having to tell family, the Girl Scouts, etc. that we are not sure of our schedule for a particular weekend because we know she has a meet but we won't know when the session will be until a week or two ahead of time.
2. The possibility of a Friday session. Hey, meet organizers, guess what? Many parents have to work to pay your meet fees! Some of us have to travel and can't easily refuse to schedule travel on eight Fridays out of every year because we might need to take our child to a meet that day. And those kids who are competing in your meet? They have to go to school.
3. The fact that schedules are never released before the withdrawal deadline.

Meet directors are well aware that Friday sessions are hard for parents. We hold a large meet and it is unavoidable having Friday sessions. From year to year we try to rotate which levels have to go on Friday knowing that people won't be 100% happy.

It might be a good idea to ask those who are in charge of your meet schedule for the year to try and avoid the larger meets if you can. Or you can just turn them into mini vacations :)
 
I am with you! I can mostly deal with not knowing whether a session is Saturday or Sunday. I am willing to book a hotel and cancel if necessary. But there are three things I can't stand:
3. The fact that schedules are never released before the withdrawal deadline.
We are usually lucky enough that we have the schedule (or at least a tentative one) before the withdrawal deadline for the most part… because the withdrawal deadline is just 2 weeks before the meet (except Y Nationals, which once you pay, there is no refund… and you have to pay in March for a meet at the end of June to the beginning of July).
 
These are things you will need to get over. And you do, because it drove my husband and I crazy at first. Now it is just part of the process.
We have learned to qualify invites. Yes would love to come but depends on when child's meet is. So as long as last minute is OK we are in.

And Friday and late Sunday report times still get me cranky because 1-they are kids and 2- they have school.

Once my kid qualifies for states I book the hotel, for the whole weekend, making sure we can cancel up to 24 hours before check in.

We rarely have to travel for meets, but I book with the ability to cancel when we do.

Have learned to leave the whole weekend open, yep just part of the deal.

Yeah its a rookie gym parent thing.
 
Most of our meets are in the city that is an hour away from us, but in cases of further meets, I always prebook Friday and Saturday night (if in state) and Thursday-Sunday or Monday for out of state. We are traveling to Vegas in January and I booked flights/hotel a while back and plan on just having some fun with the girls and their teammates in our off time. I hope that they won't be in the same session different gyms though. :/
 
Yep, I learned real quick to block out the whole weekend (Thurs-Mon), put my employer on notice and book a hotel for the whole time, making note of the cancellation requirements, as every hotel is different and you never need the whole weekend.

It is a learning curve for sure!
 
Yep, I learned real quick to block out the whole weekend (Thurs-Mon), put my employer on notice

It is hard to put your employer on notice if you are in a high-travel position. It is very difficult to refuse to travel on one-fifth of the Fridays in the year because your child *might* have a meet that day. If the client wants the meeting on Friday, the client wants the meeting on Friday. My colleagues are not usually willing to push back against the client's wishes.
 
When dd was a new optional the whole travel meet thing was crazy to us. As we learned more and I learned how meets are planned, it became easier to deal with the uncertainty. Here is my advice:
- Recognize that from the beginning of Jan thru the end of Mar/Apr/May (depending on what level for the culminating meet of the season) that weekends are possibly committed to gymnastics.
- When your club's meet schedule comes out, start figuring out where the meet is and what hotels are in the area. Most meets can be found somewhere online. I found that using mymeetscores I could find the host club's website and dig for information. I always looked for a Hilton property since you get a 15% USAG discount.
- Never, ever book non-refundable air tickets; in fact, I tried to wait until the 21-day out point to do the air travel. By that point, most big meets have at least a preliminary schedule out.
- With the exception of 1 trip, we did all of our travel on Southwest and never lost a dime for canceled/changed flights. We always used any cancelled trip dollars on another trip in the future.

You have to realize, that if you are committed to supporting your child in this sport, sacrifices will have to be made. We decided at the outset that we would turn our travel meets into mini family vacations; it turned out to be a blast and we got to see parts of the country that we never would have without gymnastics (Salt lake, Boise, Indianapolis, and yes - Bartlesville, OK).

Good Luck.
 
It is such a pain isn't it? we still don't have a meet schedule for a meet and 2 1/2 weeks. So I'm with you on getting a little bit frustrated. While I know this is just part of gymnastics I do feel that we should have a schedule three weeks in advance.
 

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