Just when I thought I had it covered...

This weekend's trip has been on my radar for a couple months, knowing it was the one basketball trip I'd be covering solo.  It was Knighthawks' training camp opening weekend, so Craig had to work.  He'd made a deal to be off for the Spooky Nook trip in Pennsylvania next weekend so this one was pretty much non-negotiable.  I didn't love the thought of wrangling both boys on a nearly four-hour trip, but over the past few weeks we worked out a few things and I finally felt pretty good about it.  We decided I could take my car instead of the van by moving Carter's seat behind me, which would let Jacob move his seat fully back for max leg room, and putting movies on my computer for Carter like I did for the Kennywood trip.  The van is definitely better for travel but I hate driving it around busy and less familiar areas like where we were staying, so I knew I'd feel better about my car.  At least we knew the area a bit from last year, enough to know where all the restaurants were, what stores were available, and the closest playground.  We were playing later in the day (or so the schedule initally said), so no crazy early mornings.  We had snacks from last weekend and had worked out some of our travel hiccups then, so I felt like we were going to be okay.

And then Carter came down with a cold.  He seemed a little extra sniffly on Thursday morning but otherwise felt okay, so we let him go to school.  He sometimes has congestion in the morning anyway and while it was clearly a bit worse, we couldn't really tell if it was worth keeping him home.  He had Friday off anyway, so it was just one day.  I told him if he felt worse during the day to just go to the nurse and I'd come get him since I was working from home.  He definitely had a little cough and complained about a sore throat by the time he came home, but he was in good spirits.  I read him a book that night but ended up not laying with him since it was late and he was still coughing and sniffly.  

I took off Friday since he was home for parent-teacher conference day.  I meant to test him in the morning, but he slept in for a bit and once he woke up I was busy packing and getting him set up with breakfast and clothes before I left for the parent-teacher conference.  The conference ended up being a whole other thing.  I didn't exactly expect his teacher to gush about him based on what he'd been saying about school, but it was considerably worse than I expected for a kid who does well on most of his assignments and has a number of stars on his behavior chart.  The teacher has a middle school background and seems a bit inflexible in regard to elementary kids being a bit more needy and irresponsible.  She was actually surprised to find out Carter is medicated for his ADHD because he's so high energy and rather disorganized.  I know that's an issue (I see his backpack daily and saw his desk at open house) and we've been encouraging him to be better about his folders and desk.  Apparently he's a bit overzealous pointing out when others make mistakes, and he's just not good at following certain directions or transitioning between activities, which wasn't a surprise either based on challenges at home.  Academically he's fine, but with his teacher knowing what it takes to be successful in middle school, I think she's trying to get him on track to do better.  That's understandable, but he is still just in fourth grade and there's a lot of maturing to do between now and then.  He definitely does rush through his work and make careless mistakes, and I wish we could get his writing looking a little more legible, but it's all a process.  His teacher definitely rubbed me the wrong way in a lot of ways, though.  She explained that his last teacher didn't really pass along any info on him that would have prepared her for his quirks, but since his last teacher was a great fit and never expressed any complaints about him, I guess maybe she didn't realize that he might not react the same to everyone.  I get that, but isn't your job as a teacher to adapt a bit?  She admitted some days she goes home and feels like she was mean to him, and trust me--I get it, he can be exasperating sometimes.  She asked me what I thought would help and I said that sometimes I don't think he hears or processes certain instructions because he's immersed in what he's doing and blocking everything else out.  So maybe don't assume he heard you and is being a jerk--be intentional about letting him know it's time to stop and make sure he heard you.  I am definitely going to talk to him as well because I think there are things he needs to work on--direct instructions he repeatedly defies like keeping his agenda out for her to review or not taking his rock collection out at dismissal--because he's making things harder for everyone by not following simple rules like that.  I did say I'd check with the doctor to see if his medicine dose is still appropriate after all the growing he's done in the past year, because it's possible he needs a bump if she's not seeing it at school.  So, that was all pretty disappointing, but I think we can get there.  It's just going to take work.  He's an earnest kid who wants to do well at school and wants to be liked, so I think if I can explain to him some of her struggles, maybe it will help him understand and give him some hope that he can improve his standing with her.  I think right now he feels like he can't do anything right in her eyes, so maybe he either doesn't make an effort or just assumes it won't matter, but if he makes a couple improvements and shows he's trying, it will go a long way.

Since we had the day off, Carter and I were planning on going to a playground a half hour away that he had been asking to go back to.  We were going to leave after the conference, but it was still really cold out so we were going to wait until after lunch and get back just in time to meet Jacob after school and get ready to leave for Albany.  I remembered as I was working on finishing packing that I still needed to test him.  If he had seemed significantly worse I was going to take him to the doctor to get the triple test (COVID, flu, RSV), plus a strep test since that had been in his class, but he said he felt a little better so we just did the COVID test at home.  He hates them so much--he sneezes so badly after getting swabbed--but we pushed through.  And imagine my disbelief as I looked down at the processing test as I threw out all of the packaging and there was already a visible line at the T.  Noooo.  Dammit, he was positive for COVID.  Well, sh**.  So much for our weekend.  

I panicked and called Craig to figure out what the heck we were going to do.  Carter clearly couldn't go on the trip, but Craig had to work, and we were all exposed, so what were the odds that Jacob or I could get through the weekend without getting sick ourselves?  I tested myself and was negative, and Craig tested too and was also negative.  We also had nearly $400 sunk into a hotel room and could not figure out how we might send Jacob with the team and get him checked in without an ID, or get him fed (obviously he can't eat just anywhere) or anything else.  It just didn't seem to work.  We decided that I would try to take him and just hope that my system could fight anything off long enough to get through the weekend.  I'd mask and keep bolstering my immune system with zinc and vitamin C, and take tests with me (along with a slew of cold medicine and DVDs to watch if I was stuck in the hotel room).  If I ended up positive, I'd just mask up and drop him off for games, then return to the hotel and wait.  It wouldn't be fun to mask all weekend, but it would be worth it if he could play.  His team was down a few players for the weekend so he was needed and would get to play more.  The plan had a million things that could go wrong, but we had to give it a try.

I finished packing and nervously waited for Jacob to get home from school.  Carter squirreled himself in the basement with a mask on and watched a movie.  When Jacob got home and I broke the news to him, in true Jacob fashion he ended up freaking out more about the fact that Carter was downstairs contaminating his Legos than the potential for any of us getting COVID or ruining his weekend.  Oy.  As a side note, did you know that you can't spray Legos with Lysol?  Apparently there's a chemical in it that breaks down the plastic.  I'm pretty sure I did a light spray after he had COVID, but I don't think it was significant...but oops.  Jacob was throwing out roadblocks to getting ready and leaving as a result, but finally put on a mask and moved everything to his satisfaction.  After some last-minute packing, we said goodbye to Carter (who would have to wait for Craig to get home later) and headed out.  We had a slow start with having to get gas, pick up some extra stuff at Wegmans, and stop downtown at Craig's office to grab the GPS and give him a couple things.  Eventually we were on the road with a 7:30 arrival estimate.

By some miracle, neither of us had to stop to use the bathroom and we kept ourselves occupied with snacks so we didn't need to stop for dinner.  I wanted to minimize the amount of dark driving I had to do, and in the end it was probably only about an hour.  We had a nice sunset in the rear view, which was nice.

The ride was actually really great, despite the fact I did the whole thing masked since I'd had more exposure to Carter than Jacob had, and it was more important to keep him healthy.  I was nervous about filling the time with a sometimes-grumpy teenager, especially once the whole weekend was called into question and could make his anxiety flare.  But we had great conversations the whole way.  We talked a lot about why his classmates and school policies confuse him, and I tried to explain a lot of it by hearkening back to my college years when I knew what it was like to be a struggling Christian trying to be responsible with my dating and figure out what God's will was for my life.  At his school, no one seems to be interested in dating, and the school forbids showing affection anyway.  Sometimes it's fun to have older kids and have more honest, I've-been-there type conversations because sometimes those can be more meaningful.  We talked about a lot of different stuff and kept ourselves occupied pretty well.  I was starting to drag a little bit by the last hour--worrying that my achiness from sitting in the same position for hours was actually COVID--but it was a relief to get to the hotel.  We did a late dinner at Five Guys around the corner, and then did a quick run to Walmart so I could buy a foam mattress topper to make the pull-out sofabed in the room a bit more comfortable.  We could only get a king with a sofabed from the team's block of rooms, and we tend to default to giving Jacob the comfortable bed so he plays well and isn't stiff.  If there's four of us he has to share, of course, but it was actually a good thing Carter wasn't with us because this one ended up being less than a full.  It would have been cozy!  I figured that I'd invest $20 in a topper that we can keep handy for future sofabed rooms.  It wasn't a perfect fix but it was better than nothing.

All in all, our day was a really good one.  Even Jacob admitted he was having fun with me--maybe more than Craig since Craig isn't as much of a talker on trips--and that was probably more than I could ask for, particularly at a time like this when we're struggling to connect at home.  We went to bed at a reasonable time and were happy to sleep in.  In the end, I didn't sleep great.  I was trying to sleep with a mask just in case, but it was really starting to hurt my ears so I had to quit around 3:30.  I was slightly uncomfortable for most of the night and flipped over a lot.  The other complication was that I was constantly sort of self-checking to see if I was noticing any symptoms cropping up.  Stuff like that tends to preoccupy me all night and it usually leaves me sleeping very lightly.  All things considered it wasn't a terrible night of sleep, but it was a little annoying knowing that Jacob was all spread out on the king bed!  At least the night was long enough in duration that I wasn't super exhausted in the morning.  

Our room was pretty cool and modern, though.  There was a fancy walk-in shower but an otherwise traditional bathroom, and once again the bed was on the wall opposite the bathroom, facing the windows.  The sofabed was cool and modern, and there was cool lighting and a funky cabinet with the fridge and microwave.  And lots of USB plugs!

The wooden thing is the cabinet hiding the fridge and microwave.  My suitcase is on an ottoman for the couch.  The TV had a changing shelf and the lamp behind the couch had plug and USB outlets.

This is the couch put back together, complete with a little side table.

We had a relatively lazy morning.  We finally left around 11 to visit a place right near the same Five Guys we ate at, a little spot called 518 Donuts.  They serve gluten-free chicken and donuts, along with a larger selection of regular donuts.  It wasn't cheap, but Jacob loved the chicken and we took a half dozen donuts to get him through the weekend.  I grabbed a Subway sub and we headed back to the room to eat and get ready for the first game.  

He was so excited about the chicken that he took a picture (and he's not a picture taker)!

Jacob's team was still having shooting problems like last weekend, but at least Jacob was not!  He scored four three-pointers in the first game!  It was great to see him get some points with the extra playing time he got.  Unfortunately, his team lost by 10 and he was kicking himself more for the two-pointer he missed near the end than celebrating the ones he did get.  We watched another team from his same organization play after that, and then it was back to game two.  He got two three-pointers in the second game, but the team still struggled and lost by 24.  That was such a bummer because they feel so much better than this.  Being down three players didn't help and they're just sort of generally struggling, but it still felt really disappointing.

Here's a sampling of his baskets:

We wrapped up the night by picking up Chipotle and hanging out in the room.  He left for a team meeting for a bit, and then we randomly watched some Bob Ross on PBS, which brought back good memories of my grandma, who painted herself and loved to watch him.  I decided Bob Ross and his simple teaching style is the reason we have paint-and-sip places today.

By bedtime I was definitely feeling a little bit of a headache.  I'd had maybe a little extra junk in my throat for parts of the day--nothing concerning, but knowing hoarseness and a sore throat were part of Carter's symptoms, it made me a little nervous.  But the headache (and possible body aches--hard to tell if it was just the crappy bed) was in and out and sort of hanging in there by the end of the day.  It didn't surprise me since that was a main symptom with the vaccines and especially when I got exposed, but it also didn't necessarily mean I was infected because that's what my body did while fighting it off previously.  I fully expected stuff like that might happen whether or not I ended up getting infected.  I could only hope that the worst of it would hold off for another 18 hours, but I knew that was a lot to ask.  I took some ZzzQuil to hopefully sleep through the uncomfortable bed, and hoped for the best.

Just after we turned the lights out, my phone rang.  Craig had called to tell me that Carter was now throwing up.  Lovely.  That was about the last thing he needed, but luckily Carter made it to the bathroom fine.  It turned out to be the only time he got sick and he kept everything down today.  Still, I felt guilty that I hadn't been there to support Carter and help Craig out.  

Jacob's team played a little after 10 the next morning.  That wasn't originally how the schedule looked but in the end we were thrilled to get an earlier slot so we weren't driving home so late.  I slept relatively well and we got up pretty much on time, but we didn't get out of the hotel quite when I wanted to.  I dropped him off and went back to grab a coffee and stop at Aldi (I wanted to see if their Aisle of Shame had anything ours didn't, or any good clearance deals) before heading back for the game.  Fortunately, his team finally pulled out a win, but because the other team was playing tight man-to-man defense, it wasn't a good matchup for Jacob and he only played a few minutes with zero shots.  Still, he was thankful for the win and seemed content with his coach's explanation that he "needed to make better decisions".  That was a relief since we've had a lot of less-than-satisfied rides home.

We headed out, stopping for more gluten-free chicken for him and McDonald's for me (it was the only thing I thought I could eat while driving), and then got on the road.  Unfortunately, it was like a switch flipped and the trip home was basically what I expected the trip there to be--Jacob was a less-than-ideal passenger.  He napped a bit (which was fine), stared at his phone, ignored most of my comments, and then got argumentative about a few things.  We had yet another fruitless chat about how he unfairly judges Carter.  He says that Carter doesn't make an effort to be his "best self", and I tried to explain that Jacob has no right to say what Carter's best self is, and just because Jacob knows what makes his own best self, that doesn't mean it's the same as Carter's or that Carter needs to know what his best self is at this age.  Carter is still trying to find his thing, and there's nothing yet that he is as passionate about as Jacob is about basketball.  Jacob needs to stop using himself as a measuring stick for others.  He was also complaining about how his future high school teammates don't seem to be focused on basketball based on their group chat via text, and I tried to remind him that some kids just play basketball for fun, so they're not going to be as laser-focused him.  That's not an excuse to dog it on the court, of course, but he needs to give a little grace to the kids that aren't aiming for a college scholarship and are just playing for the camaraderie and love of basketball.  And if he tries to hold them all to his same level of intensity on and off the court, he's going to alienate himself from them rather than making friendships.  If they're friends, they're more likely to want to play well and be a part of him achieving his goals, but if they're all just annoyed with him, they're going to focus on enjoying their season and not do him any favors.  After that we argued again about Carter being in the basement while he's sick and how Jacob wants to move into the basement office as his bedroom and make that more of his own space.  I don't really want to do anything that's going to give him greater domain over the basement family room because that's a family space and our workout space, and I don't need him physically separating himself from us further.  Maybe someday my feelings will change on that, but right now it's not appropriate.  I called him out on the fact that he didn't freak out when Craig was down there with his Legos when he had COVID, and I'd be down there if I had COVID so Craig could stay in our bed (which he agreed made sense), but the double standard is lost on him...or he just can't admit he's wrong.  Anyway, it was like whatever switch flipped when we left on our trip flipped back, and it sucked.

That said, I guess it was mission accomplished since I got him to his tournament and we both made it through the games and back home without being sick.  We made it home before 4pm, which gave us a decent evening to unpack and settle back in.  I'm still not excited to work tomorrow (from home with Carter camped out downstairs), but I guess now we just wait and see how all of this goes.  We all have little symptoms here and there, but like I said, it could be our immune systems responding or it could just be a weekend of being off our routines.  Or maybe it's coming for us.  The big question mark is the last tournament weekend coming up.  I've been running scenarios in my head a bit, like if any of us get it, what is still possible?  It's frustrating to think about, so I'm just going to ignore it for a couple days and see what happens.

I'm glad we were able to get the trip in but I'm sad COVID finally chased Carter down.  Fortunately he's slowly feeling better, but the next few days will be tough not being able to be close with him like usual.  I'm just so tired of COVID spoiling the party and hope that if nothing else, whatever happens now could give us a more normal holiday season.  Even if it's just a little boost like I got in February from fighting off a lesser dose, that might be a help.  But we still have a long week to get through first...