Tales of Two Boys

Last week, the boys were off school and I pounded through my work as quickly as I could early in the week so I was able to take off Thursday and Friday.  I figured it might be helpful to be available for Jacob, and with Carter's new desk being on the verge of being ready (replacement piece finally arrived early this week), my goal was to take some time to sort through his room.  We hadn't done a purge in a long time so there was still a lot of little kid stuff in his room and things that I knew hadn't been touched in ages.  It was time to sort through the books to make the good ones easier to find, and also chose ones to donate or pack away for posterity (or grandkids) in a bin.  Jacob wanted to clear his bookshelf completely (save for about three books) so we looked through his rejects, too.  We cleared out a bunch, enough to comfortably populate Carter's bookshelf and maybe move some small ones over to his desk if needed.  I now have a bin in the crawl space about 2/3 full with books--a mix of beloved board books, favorite kid books, and a lot of my old books I just couldn't bear to part with.  I'll try to donate the rest to our church's food pantry book ministry, which my aunt actually started years ago.

As I mentioned in my last post, we have Carter's fidget toys all in a bin to keep near his desk, and we'll also put some school supplies on one of the shelves--some paper, notebooks, maybe some crayons and markers.  Maybe we can store some toys in the remaining shelves.  We only cleared out a couple stuffed animals this time through (and then Jacob added more to the mix tonight--more on that in a minute), but oh well.  The big remaining problem is that there are a lot of toys we won't have space for, in his room or maybe anywhere.  At this point I'm ready to group them all in bins--Playmobil, Imaginext, and any other miscellaneous toys, and leave it to Craig to sort through with one or more of the boys to 1) match things up; and 2) decide what should be kept, stored, or given away.  He just knows better what goes with what, I've said repeatedly that it shouldn't be on me to do all of these things.  If we can pare things down and make room to keep some of it out, great.  And if not, maybe it's time to pack those things away, or pack away something else to make room.  We just have to start making some hard decisions.  It's challenging for me because I don't like to be wasteful and I feel like a lot didn't get enough use--mostly because of the screen problem--but I do think paring things down will make it easier for Carter to play with what he has.  We just have some very specific problem areas and they stress me out.  It was funny, because as we were sorting books, we came across the Berenstain Bears' Messy Room book, which I'm pretty sure my mom bought for me for obvious reasons (same for the "Too Much TV" one).  I decided we should read it on the spot to remind Carter why we were doing what we were doing.  By the end of the book the bears toys were all organized and easy to access, so they got played with and things were a lot easier to manage.  And that's exactly what I want for him, too.  Anyway, unless I get extra productive during evenings this week, this weekend will probably be another round of organization and attempts to make sense of Carter's room.  I'm hoping once it's clean and organized again, he'll feel more comfortable there and try to keep it nice for a while.  

Of course, tonight Jacob took the liberty of starting his own updates, right in the middle of dinner prep and at the most inopportune time, because that's just what he does.  He started putting things in the hall outside his room, dumping his stuffed animals in Carter's room, and generally making a mess.  He stirred up a bunch of dust but of course refused to grab the vacuum or a duster to clean it all up--he'd rather just complain and insist he can't sleep in there.  It's not that these things didn't need to happen, but I wish he would have waited for a time when it was a bit more convenient and we could have directed him more.  It did force Craig to go through a few of the Playmobil bins and add some of Jacob's stuff to another existing bin.  As he did it, I warned him that when I took everything out of Carter's room, it was all going to get combined into one large bin to either get sorted or stored.  I reminded him that Carter absolutely will not play with that stuff because it's all mixed up and he can't be bothered to dig through, so we should either put it away or sort out certain sets, like the hockey guys or soccer guys, to put in separate smaller bins so they're easier to play with.  It's pointless to have them taking up space we don't have if they're not going to get used.  So, stay tuned for that battle.  Jacob still wants to get rid of the chair, but that takes a lot of effort because we have to take his door off its hinges and somehow move it out to the curb between the three of us.  It's so giant.  I still don't know what he thinks he needs all this room for, aside from some stretching.  He still wants a table so I took a picture over the weekend of the table in the crawlspace we have that I suggested we use in his room, even just temporarily, and he totally shot it down.  Ugh.  I really want to test drive things before we spend money on his whims, if at all possible.  I still think he's being a little rash with some of these decisions, so before we start tossing things and buying things, I want to make sure it's all thought through...especially because when we toss that chair, there's no going back.  Oh, and he wants to sell the million sports cards in his room (most of them were given to us by my parents' friends) at a bargain for whatever cash he can get because I told him if he wants to buy a suit instead of rent a tux for the prom he's supposed to be going to (! - random story for another day) that maybe he should pay for it himself.  Apparently he decided a few bucks from the cards to offset it would be better than using his bank account.  But I think he needs to be a bit more responsible about it, and Craig's willing to help, but sometimes he just goes full speed ahead just to get it done and doesn't think through the long-term consequences or possibilities.  So, now there's a bunch of stuff in our hallway that we need to find homes for quickly.  Lovely.

Anyway, most of break week was otherwise pretty typical.  Carter spent a lot of time refining his magnetic tile mini golf and playing video games, and Jacob had some very long practice days in the midst of sectionals.  They had their first game on Tuesday, the game Craig's parents came in for which necessitated the previously mentioned house clean-up.  Yeah, crazy.  My cousin Lori and her husband Kevin came as well.  My parents would have come but my dad was still getting over a bad cold (possibly COVID) he got on their recent cruise.  My mom never caught it but he had a faint positive when he tested back at home.  The first game was a total cakewalk against a team that's won one game in the last two years.  The wife of the head coach happens to be a former co-worker of ours and the person who got my foot in the door for my current job.  Her husband is s a trooper because it cannot be easy to lose like that all the time.  We were up 37-0 to start the game.  It was nice to see some of the bench players get in, and one who hardly ever got to play and is a senior this year actually got two threes, which thrilled all of us but especially his dad.  He has been such a dedicated fan, cheering hard game in and game out, even if his kid only logged about half a game of playing time all season.  Definitely a feel-good moment.  Jacob had a nice game himself with five three-pointers.  Their next game was set for Friday. 

I can't tell you how much of a relief it was to have two days off work as part of a four-day weekend.  Every time I realized I still had a weekend coming on top of my two days, it just gave me a sense of peace and relief I hadn't felt in a while.  Work is a bit stressful right now for a few reasons, so I think the time did me good--despite the 100 emails I came back to on Monday.  It gave me a chance to work through some tasks around the house, like fixing a sweater and doing some laundry and taking down those winter decorations that were bugging me.  It just gave me some mental space.  Not to mention I was able to sleep in a bit all week and not pack lunches!  I wanted to have more time to do fun things with Carter, but in the end we had to settle for some frisbee on Friday.  The temperature was right around 50 but it was nice and sunny so we headed over to his school with his new Aerobie that he got for his birthday.  We had a lot of fun and tired ourselves out throwing it back and forth.

This was a common sight, us chasing a rolling ring as it landed near us but just out of our grasp!

Zoom in and you can see him throwing it!

Shortly after we got home it was time to leave for Jacob's game.  It was an hour away, past Canandaigua, at the same school where his state sub-regional game was at the end of last season.  The sky was once again doing funky things on the way there.  Last year was a glorious sunset with a cool ice crystal column, and this year there were dramatic clouds and a very orange sun peeking out just as we got there.

We knew we were going up against a tough team so it was far from a sure thing.  I thought the guys were playing well and we had a shot, but it was bittersweet watching intros knowing that might be it for the season, and forever for the seniors. 

Luckily, the one senior that had been injured with the wonky pinky (and then an ankle badly sprained in gym class) did get to play.  He was clearly uncomfortable, but it turned out we needed him and I was thankful he got a game in since he couldn't play on senior night.  The game itself was a bit frustrating because we ended up with a ton of fouls.  I can't fathom that the other team was super clean and we were that bad--one of the moms from last travel season came to watch (there's an off-chance her son might transfer) and wondered how we were supposed to even play defense since we got a foul any time we got near them--but in the end we had three players foul out and another on the verge.  There were also a few other calls that boggled the mind a bit.  Jacob ended up with 17 points, but it should have been 19 because they called a foul as he was shooting a two and they said the foul happened before he shot, but he insists it was mid-shot and we thought so too.  We kept it pretty close almost the whole game, particularly near the end, but ended up losing by seven.  It was so disappointing.  A couple of the seniors were in tears, including the one that barely played and got the six points the previous game.  It's hard for kids who won't be playing in college--it's definitely the end of an era for them to be on a team like this.  It was pretty heartbreaking, and it felt even crappier when Jacob's old team got a pretty easy draw and advanced in the second round.  I don't wish ill will on anyone, but I'll admit it was a bit of relief when they lost in the third round, just because we don't need "Mr. Grass-is-Greener" second-guessing his decisions any more than he usually does, and that would be bound to happen if his old team played in the championship again.  They actually moved down a couple classes after losing Jacob, two seniors, and another kid who transferred out (whereas his current team moved up despite losing about eight kids, because Jacob and another guy transferred in somewhat controversially--it's all very political), so we figured they might have a cakewalk to the finals...but nope, they had a terrible second half and lost by a bunch.  So at least we don't have to listen to Jacob do the coulda-shoulda thing over his old team for the next week.  I think it's killing him a little to not be in the middle of it this year, but I know he'll do everything in his power to get his team to rise to the occasion next year.  In the meantime he'll settle for getting in some shooting on the court at the arena when it goes down for championship weekend.

So, basketball is over for him, Carter has a mere three games left, and then we have a little break until travel season.  But that may be on hold for a bit as Jacob is nursing yet another injury.  He was going to take some time off anyway because he really wanted to get his shin splits 100% cleared up before playing again, but then he tweaked his ankle before the last game and it's been swelled up a bit since.  He suspects he broke it again (same one as last spring) but we're not convinced because he's not really in pain, it's just swelled.  He thinks it's on the bone because that part hurt to touch (I guess it's better now), but we're giving it a few days to chill, just in case.  I'm guessing he will insist upon an x-ray soon if it doesn't get better quickly.  His coach actually wants him to join the track team to up his speed, but we're pretty convinced that would be about the worst thing for him since running was what brought on the shin splints in the first place.  I think some agility training would be just as effective, but either way we'll be getting input from his trainer first and he'll probably do some running analysis with the UR Sports Medicine/Orthopaedic folks.  If he misses the first week of travel we're not sad because that's Easter weekend.  The second week is Grand Rapids (ugh) and the third week I'd prefer to go to Hamilton/Toronto with Craig and Carter, but we'll see how the next few weeks go to see if we need to delay beyond week one.

The other big sports news is that Carter is officially switching sports--for now, anyway.  He was going back and forth about soccer and baseball so we hadn't registered for soccer yet.  Soccer was more logical but we could tell his heart has increasingly been with baseball, but then his soccer age group filled up more than a month before registration ended.  So, we registered him for baseball but he's going to be playing down a level to make sure he's not a detriment to the team since he's never played a full season.  Some kids he'll be playing with may have five seasons under their belt already, so he could still be a bit out of his element, but let's hope not.  He's excited, I'm nervous, but we'll just see how it goes.  He can still do soccer camps and maybe do fall soccer to keep up on it (I've said that it would be nice to stick with it through 7th grade to see if he could make modified), and I guess we'll see how things play out with baseball to decide where we go from there.  Of course, today they just opened up more soccer spots, but he's pretty content sticking with baseball.  I hope it works out for him.

So, that's about where things stand right now.  The weather has done some funky things the last few days--70 yesterday, 64 today, then a rapid temperature drop that led to temps in the 20s, 50mph wind gusts, and snow tonight.  It even blew out our porch ceiling this afternoon--nothing like a moderately panicked call from Jacob with that news--but Craig put it back up so it's fine for now--but I think something needs to be edited once the wind dies down because it still looks off.  But it'll be back in the 50s and 60s in a couple days, making this possibly warmest winter ever even weirder.  So strange considering nine years ago this month was the coldest February ever and even just last year they had to postpone Jacob's basketball championship due to a snowy forecast this time of year.  So, anyway, if life isn't weird enough, the weather is doing its best to make it weirder.  Never a dull moment...ever.