News & Notes, On the Road Again Edition

So, we're two weeks into the new school year, more than two-thirds of the way through the month, and today marks actual, real fall.  I'm still in denial that summer is over, and luckily the weather has helped me maintain that illusion, but that seems to be ending, too.  I guess if everything else is going in that direction, maybe it's time for me to face facts.  Summer's over and fall is here.

Despite all my reservations, I think the school transition went relatively well.  Both boys seem to be doing fine with school.  They've both been pretty great about getting up and ready on time.  Homework isn't a huge issue yet, though we have not been good at all about having Carter do his nightly reading.  Here's the thing--he knows how to read but doesn't love it, and I worry that forcing it will only make him hate reading more.  Jacob was basically the same way, and I feel like all those forced reading sessions we dutifully did years back only made reading less fun and more of a burden for him, and to this day he resists it.  The same thing happened to me in college--I got so sick of reading boring stuff every night that it killed any desire I had to read for fun.  I was an avid reader prior to that, reading countless books all summer long, and chipping away at a chapter or so most nights in school, too.  And then college hit, and that was it.  I don't know that I read another book for fun for another decade.  I don't want to shirk our responsibilities, but at the same time, balance is good.  I did have Carter pick a book at the library last time that he was willing to read, and I did get him to read his school library book, so now that he inadvertently but stupidly broke his tablet (it wasn't working well, already on its last legs, and in frustration he smacked it with a Tinkertoy in such a way that the screen was unbroken but completely scrambled), he should have some extra free time.

But school itself is going pretty well.  Jacob had some friends not return and isn't thrilled to have his favorite teacher transition from his teacher to an assistant principal, but for the most part he seems to have settled back in fine.  Carter is LOVING his teacher and has his best buddy in his class, and seemed to be in good spirits.  I asked him the other day if he was getting in trouble at all for the stuff that used to get him in trouble--talking to friends, not finishing his work, etc.--and he said no.  I tended to believe him since that stuff immediately made last year hard, and he seemed really upbeat so far this year.  I know with Jacob that once he started medication in third grade, his entire outlook changed because he wasn't getting yelled at all the time, and I thought maybe Carter was having a very similar experience--just without the clear "before and after" with the same teacher.  Maybe this one is just less of a disciplinarian than his last one, but at the same time we knew medicine did seem to help with the old teacher in the limited time we had. 

I emailed his new teacher the other night to check in, just in case I could get an update before his therapist appointment yesterday, and her response literally brought me to tears.  He was telling the truth--she said she's had no problems with him other than occasional but effective reminders to turn around and stop talking to his best buddy.  I was pleased to hear that the school psychologist had already come to observe him, and the teacher said, "She was amazed and pleased at how he was behaving."  It's like a literal miracle, people.  Whether it's the medicine, the teacher, the fresh start, or a combination, I can't even put into words how grateful I am that he's had a good start. My mama heart needed this so bad after some really hard years, and while I know harder work will challenge him greatly since he still struggles with writing, complex directions, and correction (as the other night's homework reaffirmed), I will take every positive I can right now.

On Friday night, I had to drag Carter along on an errand, and as I'd already done that to him a bunch that week, I offered to take him to a playground on the way since it was a gorgeous night.  Instead of picking a favorite playground, he suggested we go over to his school playground because his classmate lost something on the playground earlier that day.  It was a little Sonic the Hedgehog keychain, and he was convinced he knew where we should look.  I figured that was a nice thing to do, so off we went!  We played and wandered and kept our eyes out, and sure enough, after about 15 minutes, I looked over to the edge of the playground and there it was!  We were so excited, and Carter couldn't wait to get to school on Monday to give it back.  Not only was there personal satisfaction in helping a friend out, he also got a couple Cougar Cash bucks for helping a friend.  It was a nice little victory for our night, and I'm sure it felt good since good deeds didn't seem to be his strong suit previously, based on rarely being recognized as a "Bucket Filler" at his old school.

Saturday was his second soccer game of the fall season.  His new team isn't quite as good as his summer team, but the coaches are great and I still think the activity and learning experience are good for him.  It's a short season, so even if it was terrible, he'd be done pretty quickly anyway.  Since Jacob had a tournament last weekend, this was the first game Craig and Jacob got to see of this season.  After a comeback last-kick win last week, this week's loss was a tough one to take, but it's good to see Carter out there again.

Also, before I forget, since my flower pics are definitely dwindling, my morning glory experiment has gone from a raging to success to an epic fail, simply because they're now overwhelming our lamp posts!

Only one seedling survived here--something ate the rest--and it still turned into this!

Since only one plant survived on the one side, all of the flowers are this color.

This is the other one.  They had a harder time growing on this side, and would not climb until I strung fishing line.  At least I have light pink and light blue ones over here.

Funny how these thrived and the rest of my flowers crapped out--seemingly due to all the rain in July.  At least my tomato plants are still producing like crazy--including the ones that planted themselves from last year's rotten tomatoes!

Then it was Jacob's turn for sports.  He had a tournament on Sunday and the rest of our weekend revolved around that.  Initially he was supposed to be playing Saturday in Albany, so I had visions of driving an hour and a half further for Sunday and finally getting in that day at Legoland we missed out on on our vacation.  I had even found a fantastic half price discount that would have worked out perfectly.  Alas, like most tournaments, things change and we found out around mid-week that he'd be playing in Binghamton on Sunday instead.  Good news, bad news, I guess--that meant no Legoland since they were already sold out for Saturday, but it did mean an opportunity to see Heather and my sweet godson Mason!  I initially debated going at all since it would force Carter into another long car ride, which he hates, but I decided it was worth it, especially once we were able to get a room with a pull-out couch for that all-important third bed to preserve decent sleep for all.  Plus I really wanted to see Jacob play with this new team in case we let him quit after this.

Jacob has struggled a bit with this team, mostly because the coach seems to have it out for him for some unknown reason.  There are some good players on the team (the one championship team from this organization (a year below Jacob) basically got split into two teams for the fall season, so we initially had high hopes.  But then he didn't get the coach he was expecting and this one has been trying to play him in a position he doesn't play (and never will moving forward due to his size), but holds it against him if he screws up due to his inexperience in that position.  He doesn't play him a lot and can be really overly critical.  He also held it against Jacob for missing practice due to his second COVID shot and because it conflicts with training with his school team (which is important if he wants to make JV).  Last weekend's games did not go well, but after expressing some concerns to the organization's main coach about the position problem, things seemed to improve a bit for his last practice.  He still wasn't thrilled to go, but we encouraged him to see how the weekend went and we'd reevaluate afterward.

After Carter's game on Saturday, we rushed home and finished the last minute packing to try to get on the road.  It took forever, in part because Jacob can never get ready on time and couldn't eat lunch before we went to the game, and in part because Carter's water bottle was missing, among other things.  We got on the road at least a half hour later than planned, and then some of our bad luck from the last trip seemed to follow us on this one.  We had a pretty uneventful drive down, but the trouble started as we got into town.  We wanted to go to Chipotle, but there was a crazy long line when we got there, so we figured maybe we'd be better off checking in at the hotel first, ordering via the app, and then going back to get it.  We checked in fine, placed our order and then went there...but our name wasn't in their orders.  That's about when Craig realized he forgot to change the location in the app, so he'd ordered it back in Rochester!  He was able to cancel it, but it turned out this location was having some supply problems and had no chicken or steak!  Jacob likes carnitas anyway, and Carter gets the cheese quesadilla, but I can't say Craig and I were too excited about no chicken.  We made it work, though.

After dinner, the boys dropped me off at Heather's house.  They ended up going around the corner to the nearby park to find the basketball court, even though it was already dark.  High beams helped!  While they were there, Carter spotted the amazing playground down the way and spent most of the next morning asking to go there!  In the meantime, I was getting some quality time with this cutie before he went to bed!

He's getting a lot more interactive now and gave me some good giggles!  It's such a fun age as they start figuring things out but still aren't super mobile to do much damage!  He was sleepy by the end but he was a trooper and it was fun to play with him before catching up further with Heather after he went to bed.  Eventually it was time for me to head back to the hotel, and Heather dropped me off.  I grabbed some sheets from the front desk when I got there so we could make up Carter's bed, and all things considered it wasn't a bad night.  I didn't sleep great (I blame the air conditioner--it made me long for the one on our vacation that I could set to keep the fan on the whole night, because the white noise was way better than cycling on and off), but all things considered I still managed to feel relatively awake for the rest of the day, even after the morning caffeine wore off.  Speaking of which, I had to get the caffeine because our hotel failed on breakfast.  It was bad enough we were just supposed to get breakfast bags (COVID really needs to end if for no other reason than because I miss good hotel breakfasts--but oh, there are so many other reasons), but then apparently the bags never got delivered.  Thankfully we were ready early so we had time to drive around and get everyone something, but what a pain!

The tournament was a bit of a mixed bag.  On the bright side, Jacob's team won their division.  On the not-so-bright side, Jacob was the sixth man on a six-man team.  He never started and even sat as long as 12 minutes to start the second game.  When he played, I thought he played relatively well.  His shooting took a bit to warm up, but I thought he passed and defended well in the meantime.  He ended up scoring in every game--not nearly what he'd want, but contributing with his limited opportunities nonetheless.  And it was nice to see a team that moved the ball, didn't have one or two guys ball hogging, and could actually win.  Those things have been pretty scarce.  Jacob's still not thrilled with it, but it's a short season, so we'll see how long his tolerance holds out.

In between games, Carter couldn't resist getting in a little soccer on the turfed end of the complex.  I couldn't help but laugh when I saw Craig's positioning in this picture!

Gotta protect the important stuff!

He can kick it pretty hard--now if only he'd do that in games!

One oddity as we were waiting for a game to start--one team had a dog on the bench!  Not sure if he was a mascot or a support animal, but he dutifully stood there the entire timeout while the coach talked to his kids, and then settled back in next to the coach when play resumed.  You see something new every day!

Figures they'd win a tournament with no trophies, medals, or even a t-shirt, but it was nice to see some wins!

It was after 2pm by the time we were done and we were all starving, so the first order of business was lunch.  We hatched a plan to go to the north side of the city to get Jersey Mike's for Jacob, and Carter decided he wanted Arby's, which was luckily right down the road.  The supply chain problems struck yet again there as they weren't serving the new sandwich I wanted to try, but my backup meal ended up being pretty tasty anyway.  Once we were fed, we headed back toward the city to get Carter to that fabulous playground, and the bonus is that since it's right around the corner from Heather's house, she and Mason walked over to join us!  Craig and Jacob stayed at the basketball courts (again) while Carter and I explored.

Never seen a playground like this!

Even more amazing is that this is the second iteration of this playground.  The first one, which was only a few years old, was burned down by an arsonist over Memorial Day weekend last year, right after the park had hosted a peaceful George Floyd protest.  It was the largest fully accessible playground in the state when it opened, and it was such a shame someone destroyed it.  Thankfully, it was miraculously rebuilt by the fall, and is quite a sight!  

Another version of a wheelchair-friendly merry-go-round like we have near us

Hard to see with the glare, but there's a spinning thing (like we did at the one playground a couple months ago) in the foreground.  Carter fell off again!  He can climb poles but his grip for these is terrible!

Lots of musical stuff, plus a section for the littlest kids

Carter tried to do the rope climb--he struggled a bit and was telling me to help him just as I took this picture!

Never saw rock climbing grips on planks before!

While we explored, Mason was having fun swinging.  He was totally content and even let out a few giggles!

The playground just kept going.  There was another climbing section and a separate slide in the distance, along with what I called a tree house--which Carter then noticed had a tree going right up through it!

There was a glider, a pretend boat...
 

...and a quad see-saw bouncer.

It's a huge, very pretty park.  There was a lively cricket match happening across the way, and beyond this gazebo thing, there's a carrousel made by the Herschell Carrousel Company from North Tonawanda!  It gives Heather a little piece of home in her adopted home!

We had a great time exploring and doing more catching up, but eventually it was time to go.  Jacob was tired and admittedly we were eager to get the three-hour trip done and get our lives back in order for the week!  I drove the last hour and a half home, and the sun blinded me for a solid half hour of it.  But it was worth it once the sunset took over, and then I noticed this amazing view in the rear view mirror.

If you look closely, that orange dot in the middle is the moon rising.  It didn't look quite that orange in real life--maybe more of a light peach--but this picture doesn't do its size or the detail justice.  In the mirror it looked huge and you could actually see the craters and other details.  But it so perfectly hung over the road with that lovely fading light behind us.  It was so neat.  The sunset wasn't super showy, but it was pleasant and pretty, and the yellow sky silhouetting the black trees near the end felt appropriately fall-ish.

So, as I said at the beginning, fall is now here.  I'll have to push myself this week to get the fall stuff out.  I'm feeling ready to change over the decor after many months of the same summer stuff, but I am not ready for the rest of fall to start, even if I love apple cider, donuts, and pumpkin spice, and my summer clothes are starting to bore me.  But I'm bemoaning another summer where half of my summer wardrobe sat unused, regretting that we didn't get enough pool time/porch time/mini golf, and I'm just not ready to embrace coat life again.  I'm not sure I can face another COVID winter that threatens our beloved holidays, despite the possibility we could all be vaccinated by then.  But it's time to move on, so I'm trying to just put one foot in front of the other and hope fall has some pleasant surprises in store! 

20 Years

Twenty years ago, everything changed.  For us, maybe not everyday life, but parts of life--both physical and mental--shifted forever.  Twenty years ago today, September 11th changed the world.

No, we personally didn't lose anyone.  We don't live in New York City.  Heck, I haven't been there since it happened, though Craig did visit while the pile was still there.  But life changed nonetheless.  The airport became a more challenging place to be.  I know I still tend to eyeball the people on my flights a bit more than I should.  New York City will always hold some sadness, if only because when watching old episodes of Friends you periodically get the reminder of what the skyline once was.  Fire drills in office buildings feel different.  And maybe most of all, our entire sense of security as a country was shattered, and never really recovered.  

Craig and I were watching a documentary tonight and he remarked how frustrating it was that they were telling people in the towers to stay in their offices or go back up after the first plane hit.  And yes, it is sad that people who likely could have made it out then never got the chance later.  But obviously there was debris falling, which wasn't safe either, and I reminded him that the entire concept of it being a terrorist attack wasn't clear at the time, and even if it was, who in a billion years would have assumed someone else was coming for the other tower?  We couldn't begin to fathom what was happening in the first place, and an attack of that level was unheard of.  If it happened now, sure, we'd assume the worst.  But only because we've seen the worst.  At that point we just hadn't witnessed something so brazen and massive to ever assume those other folks would be in that kind of danger.  No one could fathom the buildings' collapse, either, so of course it seemed like those people were safe where they were.  Even now watching footage it's hard to believe it even happened--any of it, from the planes and the towers to the collapse and the hole in the Pentagon and the legendary stories from Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

But it did, and I still remember it thoroughly.  I've related it here before, but as a refresher: I was running late to work, and as I strolled in a little after 9 past Craig's desk, I heard him say a plane had hit the World Trade Center, but we still thought it was a small plane then.  I don't remember hearing specifically about the second plane, but at some point apparently it was concerning enough that we moved into the Amerks' locker room to watch footage.  After a bit, I remember watching a reporter at the Pentagon, who was waiting for some sort of government update, report that they'd heard a very loud boom.  At first they thought it was a car bomb or something, but I don't think I heard until a bit later that it, too, was a plane.  In the meantime, we were watching the fires at the towers, and through sort of fuzzy reception, I couldn't believe my eyes when I realized we were watching a tower collapse.  I will never forget my complete disbelief as the smoke and debris cleared enough to show blue sky where the building once was, realizing that one of the tallest buildings in the world was simply no longer there.  And of course, it got worse when the second tower fell, and in the midst of it all, slowly realizing the human horror of what had just happened--from people in the buildings to the ones on the ground.  It was inconceivable.  Eventually I tried to go back to my desk and either try to find some work to do or at least search the (very slow, overloaded) internet, which was not yet awash in news sources or social media, for information.  In fact, that's probably one of the other things September 11th subtly changed--I feel like internet news got far more sophisticated soon after.  The previous day was our work golf tournament so I know had wrap-up to do, and it was only a month from our opener so I was worried about being unproductive for a day or week.  Little did I know that most of our national advertisers would make my job very hard for a while, as they put all of their advertising on a freeze for weeks due to all the uncertainty.  We spent the day moving between the locker room TV and my boss's small black and white one at his desk.  It was a terribly unproductive day, in addition to being simply terrifying until the hijacked plane reports finally seemed to have stopped.  Then I remember driving home and hearing not only that WTC 7 collapsed, but that the Stevie Nicks concert that was coming to Rochester that week, which Mary and I had tickets for, had been canceled--never to be rescheduled, by the way.  Such a first-world problem, of course, but it felt like adding insult to injury at that point.  Craig and I were newly dating at the time, and I know I was too exhausted to make dinner that night, so we ended up going on one of our early dates to the Ruby Tuesday in Greece that opened the previous day.  That location actually closed a couple years back and a new Mexican restaurant just opened there.  Anyway, I recall just sitting at our table, mindlessly eating while watching news coverage of the recovery effort and reruns of footage from earlier in the day.  It didn't make stomaching dinner easy, but it was all we could do to simply function at that point.  After that it was days of news coverage after work that I eventually had to actively prevent myself from watching because it was just too depressing.  The thought of so many grieving families, either not knowing what happened to their loved ones or getting bad news, so many kids losing parents, so many parents losing grown children, the thoughts of the last moments of those in the buildings or on the planes, all of it was overwhelming.  It honestly still is.

We watched a lot of documentaries on the anniversary in the early years.  I still remember being fascinated by the one done by the French brothers who had been doing a documentary about rookie firefighters and caught footage of one of the planes hitting.  But as we've had kids, our viewing has decreased.  Some of it is probably busyness, some of it is fear of that grief and not wanting to actively relive it, and some is probably a desire to not have the kids watch the terror.  Jacob's probably old enough now to process it properly, but just the other day I had to explain again to Carter what September 11th was all about and felt the need to keep it really simple.  It's weird being 20 years out, having kids of our own who have never known a life without that piece of history, and trying to wrangle our own sadness and figure out the appropriateness of sharing it with our kids.  On one hand, it's real history.  It's something they'll learn about, and having been alive for it, we have our own insights to share.  On the other hand, as a parent you naturally try to shield your kids from sadness or nightmare-inducing stuff.  It's one thing in a fake movie, it's another when it's a real-life thing that actually happened (and in their minds, could happen again).  And I guess I'm still trying to find that balance.  This was our Pearl Harbor, and I'm not sure I ever asked my grandparents for their take on the actual Pearl Harbor...but I wish I had to know what they would have shared.  It's just so hard to know what's appropriate, what's important, and how to manage it without traumatizing them.

Even after living it, twenty years out it's still so hard to fathom.  It's almost half my life ago now.  How do you make sense of something that was so monumental, that destroyed so many lives, and fundamentally changed so much in our country?  Part of me wants to watch all the shows and ceremonies to process and mourn, but part of me can't risk being sucked into the terror and grief I felt that day and the days after.  It was debilitating.  And yet, getting all worked up about something that happened 20 years ago seems...unnecessary at best and disingenuous at worst.  But who can watch it without feeling it deeply?  It's a vicious circle.  It's such a weird feeling to still not know how to memorialize this day, even after 19 years of them.  

For many years my mood was impacted by the weather.  If it was a perfect, clear blue sky, 70-degree fall day like it was that day, it was eerie.  Those kind of days (even on days that aren't September 11th) still sometimes get to me, as do low flying planes.  If September 11th is rainy, it feels oddly appropriate but strangely like an insult to those we lost.  Today it was a lovely upper 70s day, and it felt pretty neutral.  But inevitably I still have moments during the day where I think about what I was doing that day at that time.

Twenty years is such a long time.  Babies born to dead dads just after are now bona fide adults.  Those who were my age are now in their 60s.  The youngest group to really remember it is pushing 30--and knowing that, it's weird to think back to January 2006 when I would have been in their shoes, 20 years after the Challenger disaster, the first big news story I remember well.  That was huge, but it didn't have the same globally arresting impact that September 11th did.  

Sometimes it feels easier all this time later (probably because I'm afraid to let myself really go back there), and sometimes I get a fresh wave of grief for all that was lost when I read a new story I hadn't heard before, which I have a number of times this week.  Just today there was a local news story about a woman born in Rochester who lost her husband of four months that day.  She married again and had three kids, only to lose a second husband this summer.  To think of that level of loss in these last 20 years, it's heartbreaking, and she's probably not much older than me.  I read a very long article tonight about the parents and the almost-fiancee of a victim who had a falling out over his last journal, which his dad gave to the girlfriend without asking the mom, and how some emotional decisions over that journal had all these reverberations through their respective existences in the 20 years since.  There are literally thousands of stories out there, and likely thousands more since from people who suffered from related illnesses due to the dust cloud or fumes during the lengthy recovery efforts.  It's crushing to know that's all out there and those numbers keep rising to this day.

It's so odd to realize how certain emotions have dulled and some are still so vivid all these years later.  Grief is a funny thing, and while mine may not have been super personal, it still didn't go in a very straight line.  As an empath, it sometimes kills me to think of the sadness that's out there to this day, and the intense suffering that happened back then.  It's still a lot to process, and that may never end.  In fact, with all these varied emotions 20 years in, I can probably safely say it won't ever end completely.  And maybe before I know it, I will have grandkids asking me about it.  I hope so anyway, because we should never, ever forget that day and those that were lost.  

A Trying Transition = Fresh Starts

I grew up hating the day after my birthday more than nearly any other day of the year.  Why, you ask?  Because not only was my birthday over, but so was the summer, and school was now imminent. Sometimes it was as soon as three days after, which was extra demoralizing.  This year feels extra weird for a ton of reasons, not the least of which is that we had the most exciting part of our summer vacation almost immediately before heading back to school.  It's a huge downshift.  

I guess I should consider myself lucky because I would also be going back to the office right now if we didn't get delayed further.  Technically we were going back September 1, but I'd have been on vacation for the first few days and likely would have tried to wrangle one more day at home the Tuesday after Labor Day, before the kids went back Wednesday.  I can only imagine how much more stressed I'd have felt if I was also trying to get back to "full normal" rather than just readjusting to earlier wake-ups, packing two lunches, and getting kids off to school.  I was grateful for every extra day we had to readjust to regular life post-vacation, because there were a lot of loose ends to tie up once we got home.  And even with all of that time, even Tuesday was disorienting despite only needing to get Jacob off to orientation, Craig back to the office, and me back working from home.  Of course, I was working from my new workspace and had one therapy appointment and two pickups to make the entire day feel disjointed, so maybe I was doomed no matter what.

Speaking of the new workspace, as alluded to in a previous post, the change was necessitated by acquiring this piece of furniture...

My dad's cousin and his wife live here in Greece and they're planning on moving out west closer to all three of their kids (and many grandkids) relatively soon.  So they're trying to lighten their load a bit, but this is a family heirloom so it was a little harder to part with.  It belonged to my great-grandma.  My aunt had mentioned on the 4th of July that the cousins were ready to let it go, but would love to keep it in the family.  As the physically closest relative, I was obviously the easiest possibility.  At first I wasn't sure, particularly when I realized it wouldn't work for my work desk.  My workspace wasn't great for a lot of reasons, and I had previously pondered getting a new one to replace the one I've had since I was 11, but this one didn't fit the bill either since it didn't have a spot for a monitor.  However, when I thought about the storage and the meaning--and how simply lovely it is--I decided that any minor, temporary work from home inconvenience would be worth it for the long-term benefit of the piece.  So, in the days before vacation I cleaned up (and repaired) Carter's former remote school desk (our old computer cart on the other side of the dining room), moved a bunch of random stuff out of a corner of the basement office into the crawl space, dismantled my workspace, moved my old desk to the basement office, and picked up the new desk and hutch from their house to put where my old desk was.  It was a little bit harrowing getting it in the van, home, and inside, but we survived.  I spent all Friday night trying to clean it up--first just vacuuming, then using Murphy's Oil Soap, and then getting to the hardcore stuff, Liquid Gold.  The Liquid Gold was leftover from when my mom helped me clean up my ugly, awful kitchen cabinets at our old house, and when I read on the can that it hides scratches, I had to try it.  Considering the age of the piece, it was in great shape, but it had definitely gotten its share of bumps and scratches over the years, and on the dark wood they were quite visible.  When I put on a coat of Liquid Gold, I couldn't believe me eyes--the scratches almost completely disappeared.  It was incredible!  By the time I was done, the piece looked amazing and almost like new--or at least gently loved, which any antique should. 

The inside has so much storage!  There were a bunch of scratches on the left side of the fold-down, but they disappeared so amazingly well.

Love this little door--and there used to be a bunch of visible scratches around the knob, also now hard to see.

 
It matches nothing but it really doesn't matter--it's a statement piece for sure.  Apparently there's a matching table and chairs, but I don't trust a real wood table around my kids!  I've loved the many comments I got on social media about how so many people remember their grandma having an almost identical piece--and a couple even inherited it themselves, too.  It's just so pretty and fits in its spot so well.  I still have two full drawers to fill and I'm still deciding what to move into the cabinet.  It probably won't be nearly as classy as what my great-grandma had in there--which was visible in this picture from the early 70s, where you can see it in her house.

She was the coolest woman, sharp as a tack into her 80s.  Darn hip fracture did her in, but I have lovely memories of her cookie jar of Oreos or maybe even her sugar cookies, and spending time at her house, usually for her birthday party or after lunch out with my grandparents, since her house was on the way home from their favorite place.  My only other keepsake from her is a baby doll I used to play with that lived in her front bedroom. 

I feel honored to have this piece and can't take my eyes off it, but it's going to bug me until I figure out what's going in that upper cabinet!  I spent part of Saturday before vacation moving some things into the desk storage and drawers, and some into my old desk, which could become my workspace again if Carter has to go remote.  Right now it's holding a lot of overdue filing, but it actually fits in its new spot perfectly and helped me move around a few things that needed better spots after we ditched our old basement desk.  It's always nice to have some forced organization that actually improves things.  

Still, it was weird sitting at my new workspace Tuesday instead of the spot I've sat in for the last 18 months, but it seems like it will work.  It's actually probably a bit more comfortable since I was contorted weird at my desk because of the drawers and the tray table that had to hold my laptop, but it will still take some adjusting after all this time.  But it feels like a whole new phase of at-home work in a new spot (hopefully for just another month or so, but we'll see), which just happens to coincide with a fresh start for the kids.

The transition back to school felt so much more momentous this year.  I mean, last year was intimidating because we didn't know how COVID would do in school settings and we'd had a solid six months of the kids at home, but I think I was just so grateful to have them out of the house and getting real learning that I'd have moved mountains for it to happen.  This year, cases are up and yet everyone is going back full time--which is desperately needed but merely leaving everyone hopeful that masks will do their job.  But on a practical level, I've apparently been sucked into some sort of Stockholm Syndrome-esque vortex where the comfort of our usual boring but exhausting chaos seems less intimidating than trying to get back in a routine.  In the spring when school ended I was terrified to have the kids running amok for months, but now I'm nervous that's the easier option than early mornings, endless lunch packing, and schedules.  But that seems to be what this pandemic does--it sucks you into a routine, generally one that's mind-numbingly boring but less intense than your usual, and makes you start to appreciate it.  But when it's time to change, it's paralyzingly nervewracking compared to how change would have been handled pre-pandemic.  I think that's sort of why making food for parties has been extra overwhelming to me, or why I struggled with evening bike rides or almost any other activity.  I got too comfortable in the monotony and don't know how to break out of it, even if what's on the other side is totally worth it.

It's almost like the day-to-day survival mode has been so intense lately that mentally I can't allow myself to envision a day where things change or (gasp) go back to normal.  Maybe it's a loss of hope.  Maybe it's sleep deprivation.  Or maybe it's that for a while I fully expected to be back in the office right now so I never thought I'd be back in this solo work from home situation.  Even though summer always goes quickly, having the kids home this summer feels like all I can remember.  That could be partly because Carter was home three days a week for most of the year and my window of two kids gone the majority of the time was very small, so everything blended together and I'm feeling the weight of the full 18 months.  Regardless, it's just so strange to me how weird this feels.  Something as simple and routine as the kids going back to school feels foreign and hard to fathom.  I'm trying to work through why that is, but that mental block making this year extra challenging.  And the post-vacation hangover isn't making it any easier.

It's even odder with Craig gone now, despite the two COVID cases at his office in the last couple weeks.  The quiet is nice but a little isolating, but at least I can strategically use podcasts (or maybe even the TV, now that I can see it) to provide noise when I need it.  After only a few days, though, I can say that I don't know how people who had to quarantine alone for months did it.  I really just like having a minute or two to talk to a real person.  Someone ran a poll on our little work Slack chat about whether we're looking forward to going back to the office (assuming October holds), and I was the only one who said yes.  Two were undecided.  I think the other active parent logged a "skeptical that it will occur" vote, but it just amazes me that people aren't more eager to get back to real people.  Not dressing up and not having constant co-worker interruptions has its perks, for sure, but part of me wants to get back to what normal life is supposed to be.  Sometimes I think my anticipation and fear of the transition is worse than the real thing will be.  The thing is, I don't consider myself an extrovert, but without much of a social life, not having a work life means that seeing people outside of my house that I can actually talk to is rare.  And the fun, cute conversations we all once had on Slack have almost entirely stopped, which makes the disconnect even worse.  I think it just speaks to my whole Stockholm Syndrome theory--it's like this pandemic has imprisoned us and now so many have recalibrated and prefer solitude just because they like the other perks it offers.  As it is those people will only have three days in the office once we go back, so I don't think they have much right to complain.  I just feel like I'm hitting some sort of breaking point, and I'm not entirely sure why it's just happening now when I finally have peace and quiet and could still do it in my pajamas if I really wanted.  Why is it so hard 18 months in?

On the bright side, a lot of my concerns were mostly unfounded--for now.  The boys had decent first days of school and we were on time without massive coercing.   

Jacob wasn't super thrilled, as it appears that last year's school population boom has cooled a bit now that everyone is back to full time.  A few of his friends left and his favorite teacher is no longer teaching--he's an assistant principal, which isn't bad, but Jacob is already unthrilled with his teachers, including the same math teacher he struggled so badly with last year.  I think he'll settle in, but we'll see.

When it was time for Carter to leave, it was pouring outside!  It made his first drop-off at his new school a little more chaotic than I would have liked, but he had a great day!

Not only is his best buddy in his class (yay for both moms unknowingly requesting the other kid), but he has a few pther friends and loves his teacher so far.  And it's just a little too cute that Ms. Howe loves cows.  We already want to write a children's book about it.  That's a much better response than we got last year, so whether she's really just that much better or his medicine is already doing its job, I don't know.  The work hasn't really started yet, but I'm hopeful.  He seems happy with all the third graders being at recess at the same time and he already earned "Cougar Cash", so those things have helped.  He's not real thrilled with the afterschool program right now.  I think attendance is way down and their activities are still a little limited, but we had signed him up expecting I'd be in the office and it's probably not worth trying to pull him for one month if he's just going to end up back there halfway through next month.  They hiked the price so I'm half tempted to start looking at daycares again.  It would be nice if we could do the latch key thing since he'd probably just hop on a device instantly and Jacob would be home within an hour (I did it in third grade some days), but I don't think we're there just yet.  

But, all things considered, despite my reservations things have gone relatively well.  Of course, it's only been two days (only two?!) and exhaustion has a way of overtaking even the best habits once the adrenaline wears off.  So, we'll see.  Test #1 will be tomorrow when Jacob wakes up post-COVID shot #2 and insists he can't go to school, but we'll see what we can do.  At least it's Friday, which means another regroup is only a day away.  Yay.

A Roller Coaster of a Road Trip - Days 4 & 5

We were thrilled to check out of the creepy hotel on Wednesday morning, and stopped for some Dunkin' for breakfast.  As we were just getting going, we happened to see a basketball court.  We had been trying to find one for Jacob the whole trip, and it was a decent one with glass backboards.  I don't think it was in the best area--it looked like one of those low income neighborhoods that had been fixed up with newer houses, and there was a memorial full of wet stuffed animals and broken candles between two trees off to the side.  But it was early in the day and seemed fine.  There was a playground, too, which Carter loved.

Jacob got in some shots, and then it was time for a long drive up almost the entire state of New Jersey.  Oh, and did I mention we were going to be heading into the remnants of Hurricane Ida, which had devastated New Orleans earlier in the week?  Luckily we had planned a low key day of shopping since we knew it would rain for most of it.  It was actually fine when we left, and despite being cloudy the whole way, it didn't start raining until we got closer to Northern New Jersey.  We stopped at the IKEA in Paramus since I hadn't been to one in so long (darn you, Canadian border closure).  We walked through the whole store, but it turns out I didn't really need anything.  The snack bar seemed to be quite stripped down due to COVID, too.  Bummer.  But the boys did have fun in one section posing the drawing models to look like they were fighting...

Our next stop was going to be the Woodbury outlets, which were only about a half hour from our hotel.  It's a huge outlet mall, but alas, it wasn't the best day to be at an outdoor outlet.  It was only drizzling when we arrived, but the cloud cover throughout the Catskills was impressive.

There should be rolling green hills above those buildings, but the clouds just covered them completely.

We grabbed lunch in the food court, where Jacob discovered Jersey Mike's gluten-free sub was very comparable to Firehouse's.  We hit up Adidas, Under Armour, and Nike.  Then we decided to check the Vans outlet to see if there was anything Jacob liked better than the basic black Vans he's been wearing for school the past two years.  We had this year's waiting for us at Kohl's, but figured it was worth a try.  Well, by that point it had really started raining, and by the time we met up with Craig and Carter who waited in line at Nike, it was pouring like crazy.  Even with umbrellas we were soaked!  I guess the hurricane had arrived!

We drove to the hotel, and saw a few accidents along the way.  We also glimpsed Legoland, which was our target destination for the next day.  We unloaded as quickly as we could at the hotel (the cover over the entrance was little help), and tried to settle into our room and dry off.  My sneakers took a lot of time with the blow dryer to be usable again for the next day!  Jacob was begging to go bowling (still, after the Poor Richard's Pub thing, he wouldn't let it go), but it just kept raining, and we still had to figure out dinner.  Eventually all the bowling options were eliminated, and it became pretty clear going out wasn't the best idea anyway.  We eventually settled on a 110 Grill that was just five minutes away, ordered online, and Craig and Jacob went to pick it up.  While they were gone I tried to log on and finally order our Legoland tickets.  I hadn't bought them earlier because we were first waiting to see what the weather would do, and we were thrilled when the forecast eventually went from a rainy morning to a really nice looking day.  Well, when I went to order them earlier in the morning, the promo code I had to save $150 on the kids tickets wasn't working.  I figured I'd try to contact Valpak and Legoland and see if anyone got back to me.  Unfortunately, I accidentally left my phone on silent during the day, and missed Valpak's call.  Even more unfortunately, the call back number was cut off and I didn't get the message until after 6pm.  Upon further investigation, it appeared the promo code still worked for all other Legoland stuff, but they must have decided to shut it down for that location since it was new, and maybe with capacity issues they didn't need any additional incentives.  But when I went to order the tickets, they were SOLD OUT.  And not only was Thursday sold out, but so was Friday, so there wasn't even an opportunity to stay another night and go then.  I was devastated.  Just complete disbelief and shame that I had messed this up.  We came all the way there and couldn't do the thing we most wanted to do!  It was clearly not a great night after that.  I even pulled out the little mini bottle of wine I threw in the cooler to try to ease up my sadness, but the helplessness of it all really sucked.  Yet another frustrating moment in a trip full of them.

We spent the night watching coverage of the rains that were coming through.  Craig and Jacob saw a half-submerged car on their way to get dinner, and we weren't even in the worst of it.  Areas around New York City ended up with over nine inches of rain in a matter of a few hours and had massive flooding.  Other areas in PA and NJ had tornadoes.  The Schyulkill River in Philly overflowed, and I'm pretty sure the sunken highway we traveled on days earlier was completely underwater.  It was crazy to see all this damage so close by, and close to areas we'd just been through earlier that day and week.  Luckily for us, by the time we woke up the next morning, you'd never know our area had any issues.  It was cool but sunny.  But we felt terrible for all the other people who had been affected.  More than 40 are reported dead now, sadly.

Unfortunately, the Tru breakfast wasn't its usual awesomeness due to COVID.  There were enough options to get us through, but it was yet another little disappointment.  But not all was lost--the boys got in a foosball game in the very cool lobby before we left!

Since Legoland wasn't an option, we had to find something else to ease our disappointment.  We decided to hit up the New York State Fair in Syracuse.  It paled in comparison, but it was better than nothing.  And honestly, it was probably the one scenario where I could convince the boys to go without getting a lot of eye rolling and complaining.  I've been to the fair twice (that I know of).  We went once when I turned six.  I vaguely remember opening my birthday gifts early in the morning and then getting on the road right after.  We stayed at my great-aunt's (who I share a birthday with), and we went to the fair.  As I recall, we somehow won a stuffed frog, and I still have him packed away!  The next time was on the way back from dropping off my brother at college, although I can't remember if it was the first time (1992) or the last time (1995).  My memories of both trips are pretty vague, so I was eager to go back and see everything again, and Craig had never been.

That stretch from downstate to Syracuse was a haul.  It really did feel like it took forever.  We must be out of practice!  After getting back to the Syracuse area and stopping for lunch (again at Firehouse, plus Wendy's for Carter), we got to the fair parking and shuttled over to the entrance.  Carter was very interested in the shuttle and how it differed from a regular bus.

We headed in and tried to get our bearings amidst a maze of buildings.  We started in the aquarium and saw some turtles and fish.  

Long neck!

Then it was on to the Dairy Building, home of the famous butter sculpture!  This year's was about getting back to normal post-COVID.  Ha.  Even still, it's always incredible to see what they can do with butter!

School lunch

Playing games

Sports!

Another building had a variety of vendors, and the boys enjoyed their massages!

One building had a circus exhibit that had tons of miniatures reflecting circuses and carnivals.  There were tiny versions of favorite amusement park rides, as well as a giant circus tent at a scale of 3/4" = 1 foot.  It was quite the set of collections.

Some of the buildings were really gorgeous.  The Horticulture building in particular had gorgeous entrances.

Across the way was a pretty fountain.

Outside the building there were a few memorials, including this one from 9/11...

...and this more general one. 

We worked our way back around to the dairy building again (now that our stomachs were a bit emptier) to have our 25 cent milk.  The chocolate milk was tasty!

Then it was on to check out the animals.  Unfortunately, there wasn't as much as usual to see.  We did see a bunch of cows, but didn't stick around for too long because apparently it smelled (I wouldn't know).

The chickens were a bit better, but there weren't rabbits or other small mammals in the building that the signs indicated would be there.  But the variety of chickens was fascinating.

Could there be a more picture perfect rooster?

This one had quite the hairdo and a long neck!

This one had fuzzy feet and seemed like seeing might be an issue!

The colors!

Elsewhere on the property was a Native American village setup that included a model of a long house.

There was also a ceremonial pipe dedicated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  It could actually be smoked!  That thing has survived a long time now!

We also saw some goats.  I decided I like the ones with the floppy ears, but wished there would have been pygmy goats, which are the cutest ever.  Apparently a day or two later they did a goat costume contest.  But this building was also supposed to have llamas and sheep, and they were nowhere to be found.  I read something in some Facebook comments that indicated that overlap with the Erie County Fair (and, I imagine, the longer fair duration this year) maybe have contributed to some changes in schedules for who was there when.  I guess early in the fair there were no cows, but there were a ton when we were there, so perhaps everyone's schedules were a bit different and maybe they couldn't spend 3+ weeks sitting at fairs.

The last building we visited was the new Exposition Center.  It was huge and really nice!  Inside were a bunch of military vehicles and this amazing sand sculpture.  It meant a little more after spending hours building with sand a few days earlier.

The theme was thanking essential workers

I love the guys in the center who were trying to eradicate the cross-eyed coronavirus with a syringe.

As we made our way to the midway (with a detour to drool over some of the amazing campers they had set up--seriously, nicer than our house!), we saw what appeared to be the finale of a high dive show.  You can just see the woman beginning her dive from the highest perch.  It was really high, but fear not, she popped back up just fine!
  

While we were looking at campers, Carter found a four leaf clover!  Where was that luck the rest of the trip?

The boys had been begging to go to the midway all day--Carter for rides and Jacob to find a basketball game.  We walked through to get our bearings and figure out what we were going to pay to do.  Jacob did do a game and predictably failed--and wow, the oval shape of a hoop on another game was shocking even though we know they're all rigged.

After already spending significant money for Carter and me to ride three rides each a couple days before (I don't regret it one bit but it's not something I was looking to make a habit), I was hesitant to shell out a bunch for these rides, and admittedly, they weren't cheap.  I didn't like the card setup they had, or the way you had to select credits, and it just didn't feel worth it to me in the end.  Well, as we were walking back out of the kiosk line, a woman and her son approached us and she said, "Do want to ride some rides?  I think there's about 37 credits left on this card and he doesn't want to ride anything."  Maybe that lucky four leaf clover brushed off on us!  She just gave us the card and that was it!  What a sweet woman, and at the perfect moment when we had resigned ourselves to not riding.

Our first priority was the Cyclone, which was a version of the ride I had tried to describe to Carter when we went to Darien Lake as one of my favorites that's no longer there.  Darien's was called the UFO, and it was a little more substantial than this version.  Darien's had full on cages with vertical bars, rather than just a chain across your spot, and when the ride spun and eventually lifted, my brother always tried to hold himself up on the bars as long as he could until the G-forces pushed him back against the wall.  I thought it would be a next step up for Carter since he liked Alien Invasion in Ocean City, since it's a similar concept, but with the added tilt.  He did enjoy it, and we were giggling about not being able to move body parts and being so high up on the one side.  The spinning was a bit more than I'd have preferred (I forgot to take a Dramamine), but I came through pretty good all things considered. 

Next up was the Super Cyclone (no relation), which was the only decent-sized roller coaster.  I can't say I was excited to go on this one because these are usually a bit rough and rickety, but Carter really wanted to.  The cars were a bit more substantial than most, but the restraints weren't my favorite (they just didn't ratchet down to where I'd have liked, so I held it down further the entire ride for Carter), and aside from a couple drops it wasn't too exciting of a ride, but it was fine.
 

I really wanted to ride a ferris wheel or the sky ride (below) to get a better view of the midway, but Carter didn't like the sound of the ferris wheel, and the sky ride was a separate $5 ticket.  Had we had more time and energy by the end of the night, I might have done it anyway given our free rides.  Maybe next time.  But it was photogenic with the Exposition Center in the background.

The next ride, the Cliff Hanger, was similar in concept to that crazy one we saw in Ocean City that looked like the Paratrooper, except this one just looked like hang gliding without the control of the flaps.  We made a grave error on this one--which I blame on the ride operator--and didn't slide up quite far enough on the support canvas we had to lay on.  Upon further examination, there was actually a chin rest and I think we should have been up on that because supporting our heads and necks through the G-forces once it got going was really hard.  We both ended up with temporary sore necks.  I also did not like the amount of spinning on this one--it was worse than anything else and I definitely needed a Tylenol afterward for a headache.  I'll know better for next time, I guess.

After that we took a detour to meet back up with Craig and Jacob, who went to get food, and got food ourselves.  We still had enough credits for one more ride, but nothing else was jumping out so we ended up doing a fun house.  It was pretty quick and not super exciting, but Carter still seemed to like it.

And with that, we had conquered the fair!  As we made our way out we attempted to get more food, but the fun fair food I wanted involving a donut stuffed with ice cream had run out.  We did get to hear a couple minutes of the current iteration of the band Starship performing "We Built This City", which was sort of a fun, unexpected moment.  We headed out to catch the shuttle back to the van, and that was about it.

Luckily my driving shift home went relatively quickly and it was a huge relief to get home at 10pm.  We were able to do the majority of the unpacking that night, which gave us Friday through Monday to settle back in at home.  We all slept in pretty late on Friday, though I'm not sure if that was general vacation tiredness or an indication of how crappy we all slept in the hotels.  

Unfortunately, our efforts to get Jacob his second COVID shot on Friday were thwarted.  He was due that day but we didn't make an appointment because we weren't sure if we were going to be home.  The office had indicated it likely would be fine to call in if we got back early, but apparently there were no spots available.  Unfortunately, any other day would involve potentially missing school or sports, so he's now scheduled for Thursday and we're hoping he'll feel good enough to make school Friday (but at least he'll get his first two days in normally, and I can't imagine Friday will be too labor intensive) and should be back to normal by the time of his first basketball game with his new team Saturday.

My favorite part of Friday was eating my birthday cake in a jar!  It was delicious and very rich! 

Craig got his COVID test on Saturday and it quickly came back negative, thank goodness, which was one less thing to worry about heading into the first week of school.  Other than a quick trip to Buffalo for Craig's dad's birthday, we had a generally low-key weekend--some shopping, school supply prep, yard work catch up, and sleep!  It's all about to get real, though.  But that's a whole other post.  That and my post-vacation ponderings coming soon...