Birthday Weekend

I felt a little bad getting Carter's party out of the way last weekend, because I felt like his actual birthday weekend might be a little underwhelming.  We had to do it then because it was Craig's only weekend off, and thank goodness we did because the weather was sketchy enough this weekend that it would have been questionable to make happen.  But with Craig gone and two of Jacob's games, how exciting of a birthday weekend could it be?  And when his gifts weren't looking to arrive on time, I was even more worried.

On the bright side, it was the weekend leading into February break week, so how bad can it really be?  Friday was Valentine's Day, and that ended up pretty underwhelming.  Craig left first thing in the morning for Saskatoon, where the weather was below zero all weekend.  Before he left, I gave him his little gift, a tube of Hershey Kisses with a Snoopy head on top.  Thankfully Carter got himself out the door on time, leaving me to fight the Jacob battle.  He was late, but he got there.  I settled in for my work day from home and did what I could, but I had to cut out early to pick up Jacob from school for his workout.  I worked from the lobby during that, drove him back home, and eventually had to get him to his game.  Carter opted to stay home.  

The game was ironically at his old school, which was super weird.  Given how he left and all the mixed feelings, it just felt odd to be back.  I ran into Coach Jeff, the scorekeeper who we know from Upward basketball and Greece baseball, right on the way in.  He offered to get me in for free and I gratefully declined.  The gym has been completely redone since we were there.  It looks nice but it felt a bit like an alternate reality--same place, totally different feel.  Most of their team is completely different--only a couple players remain the same, and only one of the former JV players (the heir apparent (and little brother) to Jacob's 3-point predecessor) seemed to have a prominent role.  From afar I could see the little girl, now a full-blown toddler, who used to sit in front of us a lot when she was a baby.  Her brother is on the JV team now.  I saw one other parent but I don't think she recognized me.  I talked to the one coach who was always really nice to Jacob, but otherwise, I just kept to myself on the visitor side.

It was bittersweet seeing that sectional banner on the wall.

As much as Jacob really wanted to play in this particular game when we he was planning out his surgery recovery, in the end it didn't work out.  His leg is getting a lot better but he continues to have pain and swelling when he works it out.  It's fine and expected to some degree, but it mostly just means he needs to get the one tendon strengthened again to give him the power in that leg.  He did, however, dress in uniform and take part in warmups for the first time since his surgery.  He started a little rough but did sink a few threes in the end.

It was nice seeing him out there again, smiling and interacting.  But it was weird being on the other side, seeing one of his closest former teammates assistant coaching on the other bench, and knowing that the crowd that once cheered his threes was probably half relieved/half letdown that he wasn't playing.  

Oddly, at one point I did hear the peanut gallery of Northstar students on stage chant, "We want Jacob!"  I almost missed it and almost thought I heard wrong, but Jacob heard it too.  I assume they wanted to see him get out there and get shut down, but I have to think they would have quietly enjoyed seeing him work his three-point magic one more time.  Carter didn't want to come, but of course I had to get the almost-birthday boy his beloved favorite-ever popcorn to go.

The game was...interesting.  Northstar wasn't very good, but obviously we weren't either.  It was interesting to see a couple players step up in comparison to their limited roles two years ago, but it was just an odd and awkward feeling the entire time.  And that was without Jacob even playing.  There were a handful of RACS students sitting near me on the bleachers and as the game came down to the end and the score was as close as it's ever been, they were chanting for Jacob too!  By some miracle, RACS took the lead late in the game, and although there was a close call near the end, somehow they pulled off the win!  It was a huge victory--their first all season.  I guess it couldn't have come at a better time, but again, awkward for me!  

On the way out, of course we had to visit the old brick...

Even though it had been an early game, by the time we got home and got ourselves settled, it was late and we ended up just doing choose-your-own dinner.  At least both boys came with me on the three stops--Salvatore's for Jacob, Wendy's for Carter, and Taco Bell for me.  I just couldn't waste time trying to figure out something better/cheaper at that point.  I also gave the boys their Valentine's treats--a Java's rice krispie treat brick for Carter (from my stint at Eastman the day before) and a basketball themed Reese's tin for Jacob.  My Valentine's Day was clearly underwhelming, but it's a fake holiday anyway, right?  For the record, I did do a lobster dinner for the family (including a whole one for Jacob) on Thursday.

Saturday, of course, was Carter's birthday!  I had asked Carter what he wanted for his birthday breakfast, and he said a fast food breakfast.  Well, ok...back to Taco Bell I went the next morning (well, after a relatively lazy sleep-in kind of morning).  He enjoyed his crunchwrap and Cinnabon bites, and I enjoyed the Cinnabon coffee!  I gave birth so I deserved something, right?  Jacob's team had another game on Saturday afternoon so the birthday celebrating was a little bit on hold until we could get through that.  Of course, just as we were leaving it marked the start of about a 36-hour snowstorm, so that was a bit of a miserable drive.  The game was no better.  The team they were playing was a lower class team but a pretty decent one within their class, and RACS lost by a ton.  It was a pretty awful game to watch, if I'm being honest.  Everything they did right the night before just didn't work in this one.  That officially concluded the regular season, so now on to sectionals next week.  The hope is that Jacob can play in that first game and at least help them to one win.  We'll see.

Back home we had some easy late lunches and then the wait was on for Carter's last three gifts.  I had a couple gifts set for him early, picked up another one Wednesday, and had ordered four others a while ago on Amazon.  One was a great deal, but it got stuck in some sort of purgatory--I think it went out of stock, but then never shipped once it was back in.  After two shipping delays customer service did me a solid and got it moving, and that arrived Tuesday.  My other stuff shipped on the far end of the delivery window.  It wasn't supposed to arrive until Monday, but imagine my delight when I got the notice it was coming on Saturday instead!  As soon as it arrived, I whisked it off to my room, wrapped it all up, and it was finally time for presents!  We Facetimed in Craig from the bus to the arena.

He got Joyride candy and freeze-dried astronaut ice cream, two magic tricks (one split rope trick and one exploding dice trick), two magic card decks, a Slushy cup he wanted (I was skeptical but it actually works!), the Aldi fake-Lego semi-truck to go with the Aldi store he got for Christmas, and the extra delayed Amazon purchase--a Lego ice cream shop to add to his land of food.  Carter is not generally a big Lego kid but he does love his assortment of food trucks and other food-related offerings.  He has a donut truck coming from Craig's parents that got delayed before the party last weekend.  Oh, and Craig got him a Lego road set that arrived early and accidentally got seen as he opened the box expecting something else.  

Since we had a late lunch, dinner was delayed and tough to decide on anyway and the weather was crappy, so we settled on Bill Gray's, which was right around the corner.  I did one quick evening shoveling session to make Sunday better (since we could have ended up with a foot of snow, I figured a little at a time was better), and that just about did it for the day.  It maybe wasn't the most exciting day, but I hope he felt loved.

I wasn't sure what we'd be waking up to Sunday, but I did check radar a couple times in the night.  The forecast was looking pretty awful--snow and ice in varying amounts. In the end we got a glaze of ice and a bit of snow by morning.  I had planned on skipping church because I just didn't want to deal with it either way.  With the extra time I ended up making homemade donuts for breakfast, which was a fun little treat--that recipe is SO good.  It's the same one I used to accessorize Carter's donut cake a few years ago!  The snow really got going again around that time, and it ended up being a pretty messy day overall.  I was worried about Craig getting back from Toronto after flying in from Saskatoon, and I was worried about our evening activity, our free night at Strong Museum.  That officially got postponed by early afternoon (bummer, but it sounds like we should be able to make the new date), and while Craig's trip took a bit longer and featured lots of cars off the road, he did finally get home just before dinner time.  We did piecemeal dinner because I just didn't have it in me to cook much--more on that in my next post--and I did one more round of shoveling with Carter's help.  We probably have 6-7 inches, although it's hard to tell since our patio table looks higher than that.  Otherwise, it was just a quiet night overall to wrap up the weekend.

The good news is it's break week, so no lunch packing and we can mostly sleep in a little later.  The bad news is the house will be chaos and I will feel like I'm cooking and cleaning non-stop (wasn't it just Christmas and multiple holiday/weather days with all of that?!).  Jacob and I also need to be up and out early tomorrow because he has his brain study.  It's the short day this year, which he's actually bummed about because the MRI would have been helpful peace of mind given headaches he's been having.  He has his eye appointment after that to alleviate another one of his recent concerns.  His endoscopy is coming up in another couple weeks, as well.  He's not thrilled about this Monday schedule because it interferes with his rehab, but it's gotta get done.  Oh, and now he thinks he's getting sick (because his teammates are idiots and keep coming in sick), so that should make for a fun week...and I haven't even gotten into all of the fun I've been dealing with!  Next post soon...