Three Sport Weekend

This weekend we had what I would consider a "normal" weekend.  Just busy enough to keep us occupied, but still with a little downtime--enough to nod off on Saturday afternoon and have a lazy Sunday evening.  But otherwise we had a bunch of stuff to do!

Saturday morning we had our monthly therapist appointment, which of course meant more discussions about Jacob's allowance and chores and cell phone wishes.  Ugh.  After a quick lunch at home, it was time for Carter's first soccer practice!  It's going to be an outdoor soccer season, but the weather stinks right now so it meant indoor practice, on one of the same fields that Jacob has played lacrosse on all these years!

Carter had a blast.  He looked pretty good out there.  He did a good job dribbling, and while he tended to get tempted every time he passed by the net, he did well.  He also had a tendency to chat up his teammates, but what else is new?

He also had a tendency to stay in goal during the scrimmage, even though they weren't using goalies!  He'll probably need a million reminders to listen to his coach and stay in position, and this will definitely be typical little kid soccer all around, so I'm sure it will be an interesting season.  But he was even more excited about soccer after practice was over, so hopefully this will be right up his alley.

After the rest of the afternoon at home (with the aforementioned catnap), it was time for the last Knighthawks game of the season.  We haven't been to many this year because Jacob is anti-lacrosse and Carter gets bored.  But with all of the changes coming up for the team, I insisted we go.  The team as we know it is moving to Halifax, Nova Scotia for next season.  A new team will be in Rochester in its place, with the same name but new ownership and players, and most likely a different feel.  It's a long weird story.  We're all bummed to see so much young talent go, and no one's very happy that the history (including all five championships) technically go with the franchise.  But obviously you can't change what happened here.  It's still Rochester lacrosse history, and could even still be considered part of "Knighthawks" history since the team name will be the same, but it does create some awkwardness.  The good news is that Craig will come out of this just fine--more on that soon.

But before the game he was honored for the first time with a team award!  He won the 7th Man award, which goes to a non-player who goes above and beyond for the team, as voted by the players.  He had multiple players tell him he should have won it sooner, but at least it finally happened!

It was hard to get a good shot, but I didn't think to get a shot of it on the scoreboard.

But at least I got this one!

It was a great honor for him--and definitely well deserved after nearly 20 years with the team and 18 as the broadcaster.  He's almost always mentioned in the thank yous of Hall of Fame inductees, so he's been long respected by the players.  He's definitely gone above and beyond for a very demanding owner most recently, so this was really nice to see.  We also got to see the team's long-time #1 fan get an award for his service to the team, which made for an all-around great night.  I helped him and his wife get engaged during a halftime promo when I worked there, so my memories there will always be linked to him, too.

The team had a horrible first half, scoring only one goal, but luckily mounted an exciting comeback in the second half that made the arena sound like the old days for a while.  The comeback ultimately fell a couple goals short, but it made for an exciting ending.  But then it was time to say goodbye, which was definitely a little sad.  The players huddled in the center of the field for a minute...

...and then saluted the fans.

Then our best player addressed the audience, which got me a little choked up.  Of course, it lightened the mood when he accidentally dropped an f-bomb (and immediately caught himself) :)

The new era will be an interesting journey with memories all its own, but it was hard to say goodbye to this one.  It's been one heck of a ride.

On Sunday we went to Buffalo for my cousin's little girl's first birthday.  For all of my fun cakes that are passably decent, I have to share this one.  The woman who made this cake (and all of the cakes for that branch of the family) actually made our wedding cake, too, and they are soooo good.  But this one was incredibly adorable to match the Baby Shark theme!

It even says, "Baby Shark Do Do Do" on the side!  It was so amazingly beautiful and completely adorable!

Emmy did a great job all day--but apparently this cake was serious business!

Jacob spent most of the party sulking because there was a gym attached to the place where the party was, and he wanted to go play basketball.  I told him that if the opportunity presented itself to ask any of our family members who were members at this club, I would ask if he could play.  And finally it worked out, and he was thrilled when he was allowed!  Carter wanted to run around like a maniac as well, and he and Craig got in a couple soccer games.  By the time I went in there, all three of them were sweaty messes...but both boys were thrilled!

Of course, sweaty Carter stripped off his shirt when I got in there, and when I tried to take a picture, he ran.  You can see him peeking in this one.

Jacob loved shooting, particularly since our weather has been crap lately, including snow on Saturday.

At the end of the party, Emmy got to watch them play, and I guess she loved it!  Little kids always love watching big kids!

All in all it was a good weekend.  More tiring than expected, but fun overall!  And the best news is that we have Craig back on weekends for a while!  Now if I can just make it through a crazy work week and the weather could improve, we'd be in business!

News & Notes, Easter Hangover Edition

My mom emailed me yesterday, in advance of them going on vacation, and mentioned she was surprised she hadn't heard from me this week (mostly because we had a pleasant surprise in our Easter card from my parents).  I realized that this week has flown by abnormally fast.  Yet aside from one late night at work from me, it doesn't seem like it's been exceptionally busy, particularly since we are currently sport-free.  Yet most nights this week I didn't sit down until about 10pm.  Some nights it was dinner, a workout, and bedtime, one night it was a late run to Wegmans, and Wednesday Craig was on the road (his last weeknight in Canada for this season) and I spent some time doing laundry and detangling cords in our reorganized office.  So, by the time I finally sit down and maybe have a snack, I'm struggling to even keep my eyes open long enough to watch a show.  It's sort of a pathetic existence, but I suppose if it gets me to the weekend faster, so be it.

I never did get back around to Easter.  We came back from my parents on Saturday night.  I took Jacob shopping at the outlets in Niagara Falls, which ended up frustrating for him.  I actually found myself a fabulous Toronto Raptors shirt on clearance at the Nike store, which was perfect timing for the playoffs.  I was never able to find one in Toronto last fall, so this was a big find!  Jacob had a hard time finding reasonably priced clothing, and while he tried on some shoes for when he moves up another size, nothing really stuck.  He ended up really wanting this $15 headband at the Nike store, but I blocked him from buying it because Mr. Big Spender needs to rein in his budget a bit.  Of course, he later admitted he didn't want to spend his own money on it, but he doesn't seem to get that that should be a clue to him that I shouldn't need to spend my money on it either!  More on those struggles in a minute, but suffice it to say that the stupid headband became the poster child for the rest of the weekend for everything that's frustrating me with Jacob right now.  After the shopping trip, I spent a couple hours with my oldest friend Heather, just catching up on life!  Amazing how much conversation you can have without two kids interrupting every five seconds!  After dinner we packed up and headed home.  Craig was working that night so it was pretty much just getting the kids in bed and doing a whole lot of Easter prep!

On Sunday morning we started off pretty lazy.  Of course, when Jacob woke up at 8am, he had to wake up Carter so they could find their Easter baskets and eggs.  The early wake-up call was not particularly welcomed (since Craig and I had both been up late--me doing the Easter stuff, him working), but we got up and let the kids do their thing.

Carter found his basket tucked under blankets under the end table, but Jacob took a bit longer to find his.  He's in the middle of looking here as Carter checks out his loot.

Carter got some different candies (Robin Eggs, a chocolate-PB dinosaur from his Gertrude Hawk fundraiser, and a bag of Cadbury eggs), a Hot Wheels vehicle that looks like a toaster, a book, a Playmobil Ghostbuster to go with some stuff he got at Christmas, and some Squigz, which are suction cup-based building toys.  He had begged for them when he saw them at Wegmans, because they used to have them at daycare.  When I looked for them online, they were more expensive than what Wegmans had them for, and when I went again, they were on clearance!  He was with me, though, so if you could have seen me trying to hide them in the cart and distracting him at the register...it was ridiculous!

Jacob finally found his in the dining room (inside a cabinet that used to house our photo albums), and he was happy with his selection of candy and a golden egg full of cash.

I had good intentions of making a fun breakfast, but I realized I didn't have what I needed so we made do with hard-boiled eggs and other easy stuff.  I made a pie for our time with Craig's family later, and then it was time to get ready for church at noon.  Despite that late time we still ended up getting there a minute or so late, which did not make me happy.  And after church there was more rushing around and packing up and grabbing snacks to tide us over until we got to Buffalo, which got us on the road at least a half hour later than planned.  I was so frustrated!  Luckily, it ended up working out fine, but it's frustrating when no matter how much you plan, nothing seems to go right!

We still had a great time with Craig's family.  Far too much food, as usual, but so good!  The boys participated in the annual Easter egg hunt with their cousins (indoors this year, since it was cold!) and picked up a bunch more candy to fill their baskets.  It was a great time, but boy were we all tired by the time we got home.

Now that we're past Easter and looking forward to Craig's job transition and the end of the school year, we've been battling Jacob on his cell phone status.  He, of course, wants unlimited data, but if I can make do with a TracFone plan, so can he.  He was sort of promised (not by me) Craig's phone when he gets a new one--mostly because he was supposed to get Craig's last one, but right before he was trading up it took an unexpected swim in the pool--but I'm not super comfortable with testing out his maturity with one like that.  I think we've finally convinced him he'll have to deal with the TracFone plan for now, but working out the logistics of that is harder.  How will he listen to music if it's not streaming?  How much restraint will he have to not watch YouTube videos on the bus next year?  How will we handle social media?  It's all very complicated, and I don't know that I'm ready for it.  But being able to communicate with his friends is important to him, and apparently we're on the losing end of his friends' parents' generosity.

Another part of this is trying to figure out the allowance situation.  He is willing to do chores, but admittedly it's hard to trust him to do them--like to not break stuff in the process (like my beloved Shark vacuum or any knickknacks I'd have him clean around), or to simply do a good job without it turning into one more thing for me to nag him about.  I read a blog post about an allowance setup where you pay them a significant amount (although in that case it wasn't directly tied to chores--but in our case, per the therapist, it probably needs to be), but they need to use that money to pay some of their expenses.  In essence, it's taking money you'd probably spend on them anyway, and giving them the opportunity to learn to manage their own money.  If they choose to get a lesser cell phone plan and save, or foolishly spend it and not afford their expenses, they'll learn valuable lessons.  Jacob doesn't seem to understand budgeting or spending within your means (oh, the maddening conversations we've had), so I think he definitely needs those lessons.  But handing over cash to him makes me very nervous.  I have suggested a probationary period to see if he can be trusted to do chores, where the payout is lower until he proves himself, and then we'll see where it goes.  We do need to figure it out soon.

Suffice it to say that I still don't feel qualified for tween parenting...but then again, I don't feel so hot with little kid parenting either right now, because Carter is turning into a serious handful.  Not only does he instigate stuff with his brother, but he has a pretty smart mouth on him.  On top of that, reading is still a struggle with him.  No concerns from his teacher yet, but reading a book with him is painful at home.  Getting him away from screens is a struggle unless he's explicitly banned.  Unless you're planning on spending one-on-one time with him, getting him to just play like a normal kid is hard.  Jacob wants them to be friends, in theory, but they have nothing in common and just seem to trigger one another constantly.  It's hard right now.

We have a couple exciting things happening this weekend, though, so stay tuned...

Day at the Museum

When I first brought up going to the science museum, Jacob was less than thrilled.  I guess he's just not a museum type of kid.  Carter was definitely more open to the idea, especially since he likes dinosaurs and I knew there were some dinosaur bones in the collection in Buffalo.  In fact, that was one of the few things I remember of the museum from when I was a kid.  I have two distinct memories of going there--a field trip in probably third or fourth grade, and with at least one of my parents when I was somewhere in my tween to early teen years, which is the last time I was there.  I probably went more than that, but those are my two solid recollections.  From my field trip, I remember a room full of dinosaur bones and an exhibit on extinct and endangered animals.  From my last visit, I don't remember a lot, but I do recall the pendulum they have there, as well as the geodes in the gift shop.

Well, this trip made it clear it's a totally different museum than it was back then.  In the 30 years since, museums have come to rely upon hands-on exhibits, and this one is no exception.  Our main reason for going there now is that there is a Lego exhibit called "The Art of the Brick".

We were able to get a time slot immediately upon arrival, so we started our visit immersed in Lego.  I took pictures of almost every piece we saw, but can only share a fraction here.  But suffice it to say that between the recreations and the original pieces, it was really impressive--almost unbelievable that everything was Lego!

The Kiss in 3-D form

David - Jacob was highly amused by how they censored him.  He does look a bit like a Ken doll.

This one had multiple layers to the waves.

Starry Night - such detail!

Mona Lisa

The original works were mostly in human form.  This was a full body, but I wanted to show the heart situated in the middle of a clear chest cavity.

The boys loved this castle and boat, but how cool that it was within a book, complete with a poem written inside!

Note Andy Warhol, 3-D crayons, and an artist self-portrait in the background

The kids were very impressed by how tall this one was--this doesn't do it justice!

This one was creepy, but very cool!

Around the corner from the human figures, we had this big guy!

So big and very detailed!

The end of the exhibit focused on a series of pictures that looked normal to the naked eye, but upon further inspection, elements of the picture were Lego.  In this case, you can see the towel and the flip flops in Lego next to the photo they're featured in.

At the end there was a building area with tables that each had a different theme or challenge.  Of course my boys just decided to build, or build on whatever else they happened to find. 

Jacob made a hoop.  It's hard to tell, but there's a camera and all sort of other accessories that a real NBA hoop might have.

Carter built on to the foundation of someone's house.  He had all sorts of stuff he added in.

Of course we had to take pictures with the Lego man on the bench...

Having a conversation

Back out into the museum, we came across the Foucault Pendulum I remembered from my last visit so many years ago.  In case you've never seen one, it just keeps moving, and it appears to change direction throughout the day as the earth rotates around it.  It was almost straight back and forth here, but when we saw it later it was creeping closer to the first line to the left.  In reality it swings in the same path as it always has, but the setting around it is what's moving with the earth!

In the space section...who doesn't love one of these things!

They had an activity where you could simulate the night sky if the planets were like our moon.  Here's the Buffalo skyline with Saturn as the moon!

There's an observatory on the top of the museum, and while we couldn't go there, I did snap this shot of the Buffalo skyline from the lobby up there.  There were also some amazing churches to see that day, both from there and from the top of the Broadway Market parking garage, which took on additional significance given the Notre Dame fire in Paris earlier in the week.

There was a section about weather and other natural forces, and Carter did the most hilarious video weather report since he couldn't actually read the script.  Maybe someday I'll post it, but it was green screen awesomeness, for sure. 

The boys really liked this activity that aimed to show erosion.  You could haul very coarse sand/tiny rocks up to where water was flowing, and use little walls with different cutouts to change the flow of water and see how the rocks moved as a result.  They probably could have stayed here for a long time, but I was a little nervous about time and had to keep them moving.  We ran into that in a lot of spots, actually, including the next area where you could play with building pipes to direct air flow and keep a ball floating in the air.

In this section on the human body, we measured our heart rate before and after 10 jumping jacks...and yes, it definitely goes up!

We came to a section of oddities, including a chicken with a crazy long tail, a dinosaur egg...

...and a mummified cat that was found in the wall of a Buffalo home.  And yes, it was done on purpose by some sort of immigrant.  It was creepy but fascinating!

The main hall of the museum is probably one of the few things that remained similar over the years.  I don't think Seymour the Mastodon was the centerpiece back then, but the hall was so classic and beautiful, just like you imagine an old museum should be.

There was a biodiversity room with tons of taxidermied animals, and I found this seal intestine coat fascinating.

This Buffalo diorama was one of the other few intact spaces from when I was a kid.  I don't remember it specifically, but I recall this type of display being more of the norm in museums back then.  There was another one in the extinction room of sea life that had been there since the '30s.

I remember learning about endangered and extinct animals on my school field trip, and while that exhibit was no longer intact, they had a very cool room of endangered and extinct animal exhibits.

One thing I remember specifically was learning about the dodo bird, and look, this is what it looked like!

In that room the boys had a blast covering up the fossils in the fossil dig.  It was getting late in the day and things were getting much quieter, so the boys spent quite a while moving the rubber pellet "dirt" back over the built-in bones.  Of course, kids came in a few minutes later and started unearthing everything again, but I guess maybe they could enjoy the kids' excitement of their "discovery"?

It was almost time to go, but out in the lobby (a new atrium built on to the outside of the building that connects it to a magnet school), we got to see this guy, who has apparently been welcoming guests to a couple different sites in Buffalo for many, many decades.

The boys were enjoying these pressurized rockets.  You could pump the levers until the pressure gauges stopped changing, then release the foam rocket.  Both went well above the 15 foot mark and nearly reached the top of their guide wire!

One last set of dinosaur bones on the way out--an Albertosaurus.  His name is Stanley...after the Cup, I presume, since he and Seymour both came from the same donor, and Seymour would seem to be after Seymour Knox III, the Sabres' original, long-time owner.  Just a guess, but that would seem to be a very Buffalo thing to do :)

Anyway, we left the museum to find a very breezy but absolutely lovely warm day, hence the rush to get back to my parents' house and get some outside time for all of us.  Although Jacob was hesitant about the museum and wouldn't admit he actually liked it, I think both boys enjoyed the experience.  Even though the museum was almost nothing like I remembered, it was fun to see it again and give the boys a little bit of an adventure on their spring break.

Spring Break-ish

It's been a while...sorry.  I guess not much has been going on, at least not in comparison to all that I knew would be happening later this week into the weekend.  I'd been spending weeks waiting to get to mid-April, and it finally got here!  Last weekend was my cousin's baby shower.  It was on the Niagara River, and the sunset as we sat there was gorgeous!

The next morning I captured this shot of a blue jay outside my parents' house...

The boys were on spring break this week and Craig and I split the week.  He was off with them on Monday and Wednesday, and I was off Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.  The weather early in the week was pretty awful, so it meant a lot of time in the house.  On Tuesday the boys and I did our annual egg dyeing.

Ignore Carter's face...he was doing it on purpose.  Grrrr.

Jacob made Toronto Raptors' themed ones, and we experimented with rubber bands and white crayons.

His old school purple and red Raptors one was pretty cool :)

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon working on the reorganization of our office.  I dismantled our desk, moved the old dresser/changing table into its spot, and moving Jacob's old bookshelf in.  It definitely opens up the room a bit!

On Wednesday we decided to do frozen yogurt for dinner to use up coupons the boys had that were expiring.  Why not, right?
 

The weather had improved by Wednesday, so the boys went out to a playground in the city so Jacob could play on a nice basketball court.  Craig took this picture of Carter, who was apparently channeling Star Wars as he played.

Our big plans were Thursday, when I wanted to take the kids to the Buffalo Museum of Science, where I hadn't been since I was probably just a little older than Jacob.  But before heading there, we did a detour to the Broadway Market, which is an Easter tradition in Buffalo, especially if you're Polish.  We only make it every other year or so, and even though the boys weren't thrilled, we made it work.

Butter lambs!

Admittedly, with a gluten-free kid it's a bit more of a minefield, but he did enjoy sampling flavored popcorn and both boys ended up with a little bag of flavored nuts, which made the trip much more tolerable for them.  I got a couple new Polish eggs to add to my collection.

I'll skip the museum for now to give it a post of its own!  After the museum we headed back to my parents' house for the evening.  It was a pleasant 70+ degree day, and even though it was mostly cloudy by that point, it was still a good night to hang out outside.  I went out for a run shortly after dinner, and then I made good on my promise to get Jacob to a basketball court.  Unfortunately, the really nice one was occupied so we ended up back in my old neighborhood at a different one.  The kids at that one were closer to his age, so he was able to play for a little while, as Carter and I went over to the playground.  

This playground was the site of my main childhood playground.  It's completely different now, but as Carter played I was picturing exactly where each and every piece of equipment was.  I bet I could guess it within a few feet!  I was trying to explain one piece of equipment, a spinning ride, to Carter, and ended up using my Google Photos app to bring up a picture from my scans of my parents' pictures:

That's my brother at about five years old.

On the site of the main playset now was once a giant tornado slide!  It was so big and clearly wouldn't be up to safety standards now.  Between the height and the metal surface that could burn you on a hot day, it was a force to be reckoned with!

There used to be a public pool on the site, as well, and the swings backed up to it.  Here's me on a baby swing...

This picture is a sweet one--if only our whole relationship was that sweet!  Ha!  These swings lined the back of the park.  When I saw this picture, I marveled a bit...

...because if you look in this picture (toward the basketball court Jacob was playing on), the green house to the left of center and the tudor to the left of that are both visible in the picture above.

I would have loved to raise my kids in a neighborhood like this, with tons of kids and easily accessible play areas like this.  And that I can see that the area surrounding it hasn't changed much definitely made me marvel a bit at how it's been so many years since these were my stomping grounds!

That field beyond is where the pool used to be, and just beyond that walkway I found what I think was a footer for the swings.

Carter loved spinning on this thing!

My crazy little climber!

There's still a pretty big slide, but not quite what it once was!  He even managed to climb back up this one!

It was a fun little stop for Carter, and a little dose of nostalgia for me.  Unfortunately, the kids Jacob played with weren't the best, but I think it was important for him to get in some basketball on that pleasant day.  We had a fun one, and were all pretty beat that night!

We had a church and family day on Friday, and today is just a chill kind of day with a couple plans before we head back to Rochester for the night.  Craig is working a game, and then tomorrow we'll be back to spend Easter with his family.  Easter weekend is always a good one.  But first...our trip to the museum!