A Weekend Divided

One kid was very much looking forward to this weekend, and the other was not.  Jacob was off to training camp for his travel lacrosse team, and Carter was solo with us for the weekend.  Can you guess which kid was which?  

We dropped Jacob off in the late afternoon.  He was less than thrilled.  Lacrosse hasn't been his thing for quite a while now.  Between his house team that didn't win a game for a full year and his travel team that won with him getting very little playing time, the love affair slowly ended, right as his love for basketball bloomed last spring and into the summer.  The final blow, I think, was not making his same travel team, and while he seemed to enjoy his brief stint with the new team in the fall, he spent all winter complaining about practices.  He was dreading this weekend for many reasons, from the intense practice schedule and the food situation to being away from us.  Why that last one wasn't an upside, I don't know, but I guess I should be happy he still thinks that way?

Check-in was easy since we got there right on time this year.  No line for check-in, and more importantly, no line for the dorm elevator!  It struck me how much easier it was to leave him this time than it was the first time we did it, but I guess that's the difference between an almost-nine-year-old and an almost-eleven-year-old, especially when they have two years of experience under their belt.  It still feels weird driving away, mind you!  Of course, Craig had to drive back right away because Jacob forgot his cell phone--at which point Craig snapped this picture...

The hardest part for me was actually running into his former teammates and their families, and seeing their happy social media posts afterward celebrating the reunion with their "FCA Family".  Yeah, we loved that family, too, until they (or at least the coach) found family they liked better than us.  This weekend definitely opened up that wound a bit, and it renewed my desire to express our frustration with our experience--on many levels--to the higher-ups once this is all over.  It's still sad and it hurt a lot more than I thought it would all these months later.  Just knowing Jacob is the only one not moving forward with them, and that he had no real guidance or feedback on why he didn't get playing time, it all just seems unfair.  Seeing all of the older kids at camp and tournaments always felt like a preview of our lives a few years down the road, imagining Jacob as one of those bigger kids with the same crew of teammates that he literally grew up with.  Now they're all going on without him, and camp just drove home for real that this is the last hurrah.

In the meantime, I picked up Carter from school and we were off for a gluten-filled dinner of his choice--pizza!  Afterward we headed to a new playground for us, at one of the elementary schools in town.  It was a really cool playground with many different activities, and despite my best efforts to get pictures of Carter, he was purposely eluding me!  But between the two of us we managed to sneak a few!

I had to totally fake him out on a pair of twin slides to get this one!

He went through this tunnel and it became the "Hand Cave" when Craig stuck his hands through the holes to grab him!  He was hysterical while trying to avoid him!

I just love the rainbow colors in this shot!

Always on the run!

Not a flattering shot of me, but it took a lot of effort to push him off!

On Saturday we had a lazy morning (well, aside from my run) and did some things around the house until it was time to go to a movie!  It was supposed to be a cruddy day so we didn't plan much, but the weather ended up humid and cloudy but not rainy.  We went to see "Missing Link" at the cheap theater, which was really cute.  We did our pick for dinner this time, TGI Fridays, where we haven't eaten in ages.  We also stopped at Tim Hortons on the way home for some Timbits, as Carter had requested donuts for breakfast. Sometimes you just have to do all the things while you can!

We finished off the night by trying out a gift that Jacob had gotten last year for his birthday that we never really got around to (and yes, it was his gift but we knew he wouldn't care).  They're LED-lit rockets that you launch with air (by stomping on a pump-type apparatus).  We had tested them out in the afternoon but knew they'd be cooler at night with the lights.  Too bad my pictures of the action didn't work, but at least I got this one...

It was rainy by then but Carter had no problem running out to grab them from the yard as we launched them from the porch!  Once we were settled in for the night, we got a few text messages from Jacob.  He seemed to be doing well, even if he did ask once for us to come get him!  I was expecting that most of the weekend, so to only get one was good!

On Sunday morning, we went to church through some pretty intense rain, feeling bad that Jacob was practicing in that at camp.  Our plan was to go to his final practice in the afternoon, just prior to check-out.  The rain lightened up a bit by then, thankfully, and stopped while we were there.  The good news is that he was on a turf field, so his team and one other were the only ones that didn't end up a muddy mess by the end of the weekend!  It was good to see him playing again, even if it wasn't with a bunch of other familiar faces.

After practice we headed back to the dorms for check-out.  Once again we ran into a bunch of old teammates and their families, and it was a little extra weird realizing that next weekend we'll be in the same city but at different tournaments.  We used to play both tournaments, but at this age the tournaments overlap.  We're going to the one Jacob's team won last year (presumably they won't this year--they have very few subs so it could be a tiring day), and his old team is going to the tournament where they got completely hosed last year.  I won't miss that one because the bathroom situation there was the worst!  The one we're at isn't great--port-a-potties on one end, and real bathrooms a very long walk away--but at least it's not a couple stalls for thousands of women!  It's still going to be weird and I might have to tread carefully around Facebook, but the good news is that Jacob said camp went better than he thought.  He got along with his teammates, the food was better, and he seemed to feel good about the lacrosse.  Of course, this morning he hated lacrosse again because he woke up exhausted (but the Raptors' game was also to blame, and he didn't mention that), but we'll see how things go this weekend.  I have to get back in tournament mode ASAP, but mentally I can't even go there for a while.  Too many other things this week!

We finished off the weekend with one of Jacob's favorite dinners and a cheesecake (from a craft show vendor's mix) that he'd been asking for.  The Raptors lost, but overall it was a good weekend.  Jacob ended up happier than he thought, and Carter got some quality time with Mom and Dad.  We got some things done and had some nice downtime, too.  This month is now going to fly by at breakneck speed (or at least, that's how my calendar makes it look), so I'm just taking a deep breath and holding on for the ride.