Change of Plans

The night I published my last post, I was laying in bed pondering this whole crazy mess of a trip, still trying to figure out how to make things work--whether it was finding a way to come home in the middle or to feed and chauffeur Jacob as needed if we stayed the week.  Both seemed equally impossible.  I mean, I try really hard to be flexible and make things work, but Jacob...does not.  Expecting him to eat sandwiches for lunch every day and knowing our dinners would be the same handful of places on repeat, I just wasn't sure how we'd make it work to his satisfaction.  It was a long time away, and either way it would be expensive.  As I laid there, something popped into my head: if I was doing a one-way car rental from Springfield to Oklahoma City, why couldn't I just do one from Springfield to Rochester and drive home?  I did a few quick searches, and it turned out that the rental would be pretty comparable what hotels would cost if we stayed the week, the flights we'd have to book to Oklahoma City would be about equal to the week-long car rental, and the cost for the other weekend car rental plus gas to drive home would be in the realm of what food would likely cost for the week.  So, in the end, it wouldn't be significantly more expensive to come home, and it would win points with Jacob and take off some stress on me.  It was ironic that originally the long trip felt like a stress relief to not have to worry about two sets of flights, but in the end, this solution felt like a reliever of its own.  In the end the one rental ended up more expensive (Travelocity is corrupt and posts low prices only to suck you in and raise the price as you're trying to complete the transaction--happened twice!), but it was still worth it.  Especially considering how the weekend actually went.  But more on that in a bit.

The downsides to this plan, however, were the extra long drive back and the fact that it completely crushed my plan for work.  I had planned on a full work day Monday from the hotel to finish some data that was due at the end of that day, but instead that was now going to be a full day of driving.  I'd get two full days at work before we left for our next trip Thursday, but that was too late for that deadline.  I'd also have a boatload of emails to sort through after all of these full days off instead of a bunch of half days like I planned.  I was just going to have to commit to working as much as possible at the hotel to get everything done...but even then it was a crapshoot if I ran into issues or our hotel time didn't work out as planned.  My boss told me to do what I had to do, so I booked it, unpacked half my suitcase, and worked through all of the new plans in between two long days of in-person work, complete with on-campus events that prevented me from getting further on the work I needed to do or working through trip details on my lunch.  It was too much to do in a very short period of time.  I worked late at home on Thursday to get myself the head start I needed, which meant less sleep before an early flight, but Jacob had late practice anyway so it probably would have happened that way regardless.  

Oh, and I forgot to mention that in the middle of all of this, Carter had some mystery ailment going on.  He'd had a cold for over a week and the congestion was just hanging in there.  Around Tuesday we noticed something that seemed a bit like a rash between his mouth and nose, but it looked more like pimples.  But they were multiplying.  First there were three, then there were a few more the next day, and then four more tiny ones showed up after his shower that night.  All I could figure was that when that area got mucus from sneezes and nose blowings, maybe it was irritating it.  We treated it with hydrocortisone, but it didn't seem to help.  When a couple of them sort of crusted over overnight with pus (like a really bad whitehead pimple) I worried something was up.  My Google search results went from all "perioral dermatitis" to "impetigo" so I called the doctor and we got him in.  The doctor wasn't sure but thought it looked enough like impetigo to treat it that way.  He gets really dry skin in that area so my new theory was that there was a tiny crack in the skin and bacteria happened to make its way in.  I was worried my parents may not want to keep him for the weekend while Craig was traveling because it can be caused by staph and I didn't want him spreading that to them, but the antibiotics and ointment worked quickly and everything was fading even by that first night.  But yikes.  I'm glad we caught it.  Now he just has a couple spots left that need to fade a bit more.

We were up around 3:15 to leave for the airport around 4:15.  It ended up being about 4:30, but not half bad.  Carter had to get loaded into the van fresh from bed so we didn't leave him alone while Craig dropped us off.  Poor kid...and he'll have to do it again this week and again in three weeks.  Sorry dude.  We got through security smoothly (other than Jacob forgetting a water bottle in his bag from the night before...oops!) and we were in the air by around 6:30.  I tried to get a trip-starting selfie, but this was all he'd give me.  Teenagers are great.

The first plane was amazing.  We had our own screens and WiFi, and everything seemed really nice and new.  I watched "You've Got Mail" on mine, then watched the flight tracker for the last few minutes.  Jacob watched an ESPN documentary.  It was so nice!  Our first leg went into Atlanta, which was our first time back there since Jacob was four.  We only had an hour layover, but by the time we got off the plane, went to the bathroom, walked to the next terminal, stopped into Starbucks to get snacks (I had to skip coffee because the line was so long to fulfill orders), our second-to-last boarding group was already boarding when we got to the gate.  Ugh.  But there was room for our bags and we had seat assignments, so all was well.  Except that the plane was not nearly as nice--no screens and pretty old.  But at least we only had two seats on our side, so no strangers next to us.  But of course Jacob was bored.  He listened to music and tried to sleep but he did not enjoy that flight very much.  I was very relaxed as I listened to music and rested my eyes, chilling out for the first time in what seemed like days.  We did get to see this view of Atlanta, though, complete with the odd-shaped football stadium on the left.  I'm pretty sure I saw what used to be Turner Field where we saw the Braves play, but missed the picture.  It has since been converted to Georgia State's football stadium.

Both flights had a bit of turbulence, because oh, I forgot to mention there were massive storms working their way through the midwest overnight and into the day.  I was slightly panicked about that, that we'd either end up stuck or in a dangerous situation.  Fortunately, the storms avoided us, but other areas weren't as lucky.  There were a bunch of tornadoes over the course of Friday, some deadly and devastating.  That was sad to see, but even more meaningful because of where we were staying.  More on that in a bit.  But this cloud was one of our views from the plane.

Luckily the less luxurious flight wasn't that long.  We landed in Springfield, and I found it a bit odd that there was a flamingo on this welcome sign.  

The airport was small--only a couple inbound flights per hour, according to the arrivals board.  They had a lot of nature-themed decor--windows made to look like fish in a lake and floors with the design of the region's lakes and rivers.  The baggage claim area was nice, with local artists' work and two old-style planes suspended above.  

We picked up our rental car (which was luckily not delayed like some others) and headed off to get some lunch.  Jacob was really antsy as I was trying to figure out which Chipotle we should go to, and I realized one of our fundamental challenges to traveling together is that he just wants to GO, and I take a little longer because I'm trying to make sure I'm doing the right thing and being efficient.  I wanted to pick the Chipotle that was closer to our eventual path to the hotel, and he just couldn't figure out why I wasn't going to the first one we found.  That was a theme of the rest of the trip as well, so we need to keep working on that.  The drive to the hotel was about an hour.  Jacob napped for part of it.  It was a lovely, warm, windy day--up around 80 degrees with 50mph wind gusts, but mostly sunny by the time we got to our hotel.  It was so nice to have a little taste of spring--the warmth felt so good and it was nice to see trees starting to bloom and get leaves!  The wind was pretty brutal--we could barely close the car door at the hotel--but at least the weather was otherwise manageable.  We couldn't check into the hotel for a bit so we did some shopping at Walmart down the road, then Walgreens for something we forgot at Walmart.  We finally got into the hotel, which was really nice.  We settled in, I caught up on emails, and Jacob napped while we waited for dinner.  

I went down quite the internet worm hole in the meantime.  See, we were staying in Joplin, MO, which is mostly known for having a terrible EF5 tornado destroy a huge portion of the city back in 2011.  I had tried to figure out a couple weeks ago if the damage had been in the area where we were staying, but it seemed like it was close but not quite there.  But then I searched again and found an in-depth description of the path, and sure enough, there was the name of the road we were staying on.  When it mentioned Walmart, Home Depot, Academy Sports, and a nearby Pizza Hut, all of which I knew were just down the road, it became clear that the tornado wiped out most of the area we'd shopped in that day.  The Walmart had been destroyed, with fatalities.  Then I found Google Street view images of the stretch from a few weeks after the tornado, and it was so sad and sobering.  Debris piles, blown out signs with empty concrete pads behind them, buildings torn to shreds...most of that stretch was desolate and destroyed.  The area of our hotel was probably a quarter mile or so away from the edge of the damage, but those images made it very clear how much life had to have changed for that area for years.  It's very nice now, but the contrast was shocking.  At the time I never imagined I'd visit, that's for sure.  But on a day where other areas were having severe weather, it was a very graphic illustration of life in tornado alley.

We grabbed some dinner down the road that night, and settled into our room.  I did hours of work while Jacob met with his team, and back at home, Craig has successfully transferred Carter over to my parents in Batavia, and Carter was off for an epic weekend of playgrounds, an Easter egg hunt, his first hibachi dinner, and entertaining my parents with his viola and magic tricks!

We were up bright and early on Saturday, and Jacob met his team to ride to the gym.  I drove separately.  The facility had four courts and looked relatively new.

I felt like it took a little for Jacob to settle in, but he did get a three plus two foul shots. 

And then, near the end of the first game, I saw him limping off the court.  Nooooo.  Sure enough, he had sprained his ankle stepping on someone else's foot.  I gave him ibuprofen, tracked down ice, raged a little that a tournament of this size and stature did not have an athletic trainer present (we're not in well-regulated New York anymore, I guess!), and drove to the tiny but effective Super Walmart around the corner to find supplies to treat it.  He taped it for a bit and tried three different braces over two Walmart attempts.  It improved quite a bit over the course of the day and weekend, but he didn't end up playing any of the last three games.  His team won that first one and lost the rest.  He definitely would have helped, so that was a bummer.  It made for a frustrating 24 hours trying to treat it and sit through the losses.  The only other highlight of our time there was that I got to try Raising Canes chicken for dinner!  Texas Toast and chicken with good sauce in the same combo?  Yum!

We didn't get as quick of a start back on the road on Sunday as I'd hoped because we stopped at the facility the older teams were playing at to catch the end of another game.  That led to a long coaches' meeting and then a meeting with the players, and then we had to backtrack 20 minutes to get Jacob a suitable lunch, which itself took two tries because Chipotle was jammed.  We settled for a Jersey Mike's a few minutes beyond that.  We finally got on the road around 3:30 or so, but took a short detour through the Missouri State campus. 

Stadium

Soccer field

Basketball arena

We also drove past the minor league ballpark there, which is home to the St. Louis Cardinals' AA affiliate.

Back on the road, we were seeing these absurdly funny signs for the Uranus Fudge Factory.  Their slogan was "The Best Fudge Comes from Uranus".  Seriously?!  So silly and strange.  The place actually looked pretty fun but we didn't have time to stop. 

In fact, there were a bunch of random roadside things I would have loved to stop and see.  This place called Ozarkland apparently had barrels of taffy, fudge, candy, chocolate, toys, and all sorts of gifts.  They had signs all over the place as you approached the exit.  There was another thing called the "Precious Moments Chapel", which ended up being more or less what I expected, but yet so much more.  I didn't go there, I just Googled it, but I wish I would have had time to stop.  Not because I'm super into Precious Moments, but because the sheer amount of themed stuff they had--sculptures, stained glass windows, gardens, a mural, and more, all featuring the Precious Moments characters--blew my mind.  There was a place called "Risen Ranch" that billed itself as a Cowboy Church and Arena.  There was a classic diner-looking Steak 'n Shake in Springfield with old signage.  There were monuments and memorials and the "World's Largest Gift Shop".  I wish we would have had time to stop and see everything.  We did manage to stop at a candy store next to the World's Largest Gift Shop because I needed to get gas, and I bought Carter a souvenir there--candy cigarettes and bubble gum cigarettes.  Yes, I know that probably makes me parent of the year, but I loved both as a kid and we were talking about them a couple weeks ago.  I was trying to explain to him the difference between the two and why I liked them (the gum's puff of smoke was cooler, but the candy tasted better).  Even if they feel super questionable these days, I wanted to bring him back a little something and that felt like a good fit.  He loved them both!

We stopped outside St. Louis for dinner so I could plan a hotel for our overnight stop.  As we were driving down the road to get back to the highway, I looked over to the side and saw a familiar cross logo.  Sure enough, it was the headquarters of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the church I have belonged to my entire life.  What are the odds?!  After that, we ended up driving right through St. Louis, which got me really excited for our trip there in May.  The Arch is HUGE.  It was really close to the highway, too.  You can't really tell here how close it looked, but it was really amazing to see in person.  We also drove past Busch Stadium where the Cardinals play, and I also got a good look at Six Flags St. Louis, which made me wish we had time for Carter and me to go there, but I think we'll have plenty of less common things to fill our time on that trip.    

I was so distracted by the Arch I barely processed that I was driving over the Mississippi River!  It was really cool to see everything, so I hope the trip there in May works out well.  

Two other things that stood out to me from the drive were the number of cows in Missouri and the number of roadside churches through most of the states.  Missouri had SO many cows.  And not dairy cows like we have here, or at least, they didn't look like ours.  They were mostly brown and had giant pastures.  I couldn't help but wonder if they were destined to be meat since that area is closer to that whole industry.  Oh, and diesel fuel was so much cheaper there--at least $1.50 less per gallon than here, which I assume is also a geographic thing.  But the roadside churches...holy cow.  They definitely ran the gamut from a tiny one room church to gigantic mega churches, but there were so many of them.  They were across the highway from one another, each one grander than the last.  I guess that is really a thing there.  Oh, and we saw a few of these giant, probably 200-foot tall crosses along the way, too.

I figured I could make it to Indianapolis that night, though it would be a challenge.  I needed to, really, in order to make it home on time on Monday.  But when I realized we'd likely get back to Eastern time by then and it would be close to midnight when we arrived, that wasn't awesome, but we'd been on Central time for a couple days so I figured I'd make it.  I was tired (but not sleepy, really) and Jacob fell asleep in the last hour.  We hit a couple construction zones including one detour (darn you, start of construction season) that slowed things down, plus a bathroom stop, and we arrived at the hotel just after midnight.  I did get to see downtown Indy at night, and marvel at the giant size of Lucas Oil Stadium where the Colts play, which perked me up a bit, but the end of the drive was pretty brutal.  We checked in to our room of two king beds, and I hopped on my work computer briefly to email my boss an update for the morning and see if I could get any work done.  But no, I was tired and by then it was nearly 1am.  Ugh.  Luckily the last bit of work was something really easy for my boss to do, so at least I got it to that point.  I figured out that to get home at a reasonable time, we'd have to leave by 7:30 or so, which meant a 6:30 wakeup.  That one hurt.  I was so tired and felt like I had a mere nap when my alarm went off.  By the time we enjoyed our Holiday Inn Express breakfast (yay!), got gas, and stopped at Starbucks for Jacob snacks (I had a bottled coffee already from the Walmart run on Friday), we didn't really get on the road until 8:30.  

That drive was LONG--through the second half of Indiana, east into Ohio through Dayton and Columbus before turning north toward Cleveland.  We stopped outside Cleveland for lunch - Chick-fil-A for Jacob and Culver's for me (that was a first, too--fried cheese curds are good!).  We bypassed Cleveland and got on the 90 around 1:30, and I knew how the trip goes from there since we just did it in December--an hour and a half to Erie, an hour and a half to Buffalo, and about an hour home.  We had one gas and bathroom stop outside Erie, and then met my mom just off the Thruway in Buffalo to grab Carter.  We had the rental car totally filled up by that point (there was not a lot of cargo space in our Hyundai Kona), and headed home to unload before driving back to the airport to drop it off, which was confusing but uneventful.  We got back around 7pm, I made an easy dinner, and then collapsed in my chair.  I was exhausted, just completely spent.  Of course, the evening flew by trying to download phone pictures and get Carter to bed, and I didn't end up getting myself to bed until after midnight, at which point I had a hard time falling asleep.  Of course.

Today was a tough one, not just because of work but because I had to take Jacob to the other side of Rochester to his strength trainer (to work on his ankle), go to Wegmans, and do some laundry.  Tomorrow I'm working in person (at least I get free lunch) and need to repack.  Jacob is supposed to have his year-end school basketball dinner, but we just found out about it yesterday and it's just the players and coaches anyway.  He has practice at 7pm and probably can't eat there, so that probably won't go too well.  Because of practice, it will be another late night before an even earlier flight.  We're leaving a day early because we had the hotel booked that way anyway (because of the basketball team block) and I wanted to get my sightseeing in one way or another.  Jacob still won't be into the sightseeing, and honestly, his ankle injury may mean I give him a free pass--especially if he can hook up with his teammates for the day--but for me, I need to do this.  Springfield wasn't a terrible trip, but other than the photos I posted above, I felt like the trip was no different than any other basketball trip we've ever taken.  We could have had the same experience in Albany or Buffalo or Massachusetts, but yet we had to fly (and drive) almost halfway across the country.  That was not ideal, and I'd have felt like it was much more worth it had we gotten to see more of the roadside stuff or done additional sightseeing.  I hope someday Jacob understands that and embraces it, because I feel like he's going to miss out on some fun and culture along the way.  As a side note, there were some things about the tournament and the circuit we figured out along the way that we don't love, and Jacob's team is getting gutted this week to help an older team (mostly so we don't lose our sponsorship).  It could be a rough season, but we just have to make it work and hope the better competition makes him and his team better in the long run, even if they don't win a lot or get a lot of attention from scouts.

So, this week is basically one massive sleep-deprived blur.  I'm trying to play catch-up in all areas of my life and there aren't enough hours for any of it.  If I work late I won't finish dinner early enough for Jacob to go to practice, and I need the time for other activities anyway.  I need time to relax, time to pack, and time to sleep, and they're all getting the short end of the stick right now because I'm tired and am trying to catch up on home stuff, too.  Craig is equally squeezed for these two days because he's shuttling Jacob between doctors, training, and treatments to fix up his ankle, while also needing to do his work.  Carter is home, too, which complicates things further.  He and Carter are excited for their time together, but their Easter will be abnormal, too, though likely not as bad as ours.  I'm still in denial about missing the holiday, to be honest.  More on that in another post, I'm sure.  

Anyway, I'm relieved one leg is behind us and aside from the ankle thing, it went relatively smoothly.  The drive was brutal, but we made it work.  It's given me a tiny bit of confidence for round 2, but I'm still nervous because...well, I'm still myself.  One more day before things get moving again...wish us luck!

Channeling Pat Benatar

In case you want to know what the last week has been like...I give you the immortal words of Pat Benatar, in the form of her song "Anxiety (Get Nervous)":

Get nervous, get nervous
Get nervous, get nervous
Get nervous, get nervous
Get nervous, get nervous
Get nervous, get nervous
I feel a little shaky, I can't control my nerves
I know you think I'm fakin', but can't you feel the curves?
I swear to you I feel it, it scares me half to death
It gathers in my throat and it gathers up my breath

Anxiety, got me on the run
Anxiety, yeah, I just need someone
Anxiety, can't get nothin' done
Anxiety, spoils all the fun

I'm picking up the telephone, there's no one I can call
I need somebody bad tonight, can't find no sleep at all
I wish I could relax, I just can't stop my mind
I wish I could collapse but my body's not that kind

Anxiety, got me on the run
Anxiety, yeah, I just need someone

I've known this song for 20+ years but it's been stuck in my head for the last week, especially those two bolded lines.  Admittedly, some of the nerves I've had for the past few months chilled out once the flights got booked, but I am still a bundle of nervous energy most of the time.  I start thinking about elements of the trip and I get a nervous stomach flip-flop or my lower digestive tract goes into hyperdrive (yes, TMI, but I admit I am a nervous pooper--it's the first thing my body does when something stressful happens).  

The nerves were made worse when Carter got sick last week.  He came home from school on Tuesday sniffly and sneezy.  At first I was nervous he caught Jacob's COVID, but he tested negative Wednesday morning.  We kept him home anyway, but he felt fine other than the congestion and he stopped being a sneezy mess after that day and wanted to go back to school on Thursday.  The congestion has hung in there a bit, but it was significantly more tolerable after the first could days.  And then Jacob woke up sniffling on Thursday, which made me wonder if he was having a bounce-back case of COVID.  But we didn't really have time to test that morning and it seemed to fade by the afternoon so we let it be.  The bounce-back theory was probably only a thing in my head because I had "COVID headaches" most of the week.  They were the same low-level, full-headed, annoying ones I had when I got the vaccine or was exposed, the ones that only respond so much to pain killers and make me feel like I have a fever.  I tested myself Saturday morning before heading to a family bridal shower, just to be sure.  I don't know why I was still having those headaches a couple weeks after Jacob had recovered, but my theories are that a) Jacob had a bounce-back case and was spewing COVID again for a couple days; b) Carter actually did have COVID but tested negative initially despite heavy symptoms at the time (and I didn't re-test because by the time I made the connection he would have been out of quarantine anyway); or c) that coughing, sniffly woman I sat in front of at church last week actually had COVID.  Could be any of the above, I suppose.  But the headaches have waned a bit over the past couple days so hopefully we're in the clear.  But between all of those illnesses and a minor knee injury Jacob suffered in gym class on Friday, I've been convinced this trip is doomed.

Then on Friday, Craig left for the airport at 4:30am and texted me around 7:30 when I was leaving to drop the kids at school that they still hadn't left.  The plane had a mechanical issue and they ended up having to cancel the flight.  He couldn't get rebooked until 5:30, so he came home, napped, and left again mid-afternoon, not getting to Vegas until 1:30am our time.  That was a long day.  Of course it made me hope the following Friday's travel would be smoother, but yikes, that was a vivid reminder of how crappy travel can be.  I was still a little sad to not be going to Vegas with him.  When the schedule came out I had pinpointed this trip as one I really wanted to go on--for the first time in ages--but between terrible flights and all of the travel coming up, it just wasn't happening this time.  I was doubly bummed when we found out my niece and nephew were there with their mom for little getaway!  I would have loved to see them.  And I would have had more time to catch up with them than Craig did.  He did get them tickets for the game, so it was cool they got to see lacrosse while they were there, but they just couldn't match up their schedules to get together.  He had some time to wander around the strip on Sunday and take some cool pictures, but I really wished I could have been there myself.  It's been almost 20 years since we went there two years in a row and I haven't been back since.  So much has changed, too.  Hopefully someday.

 

Instead, I was back at home shuttling Jacob to and from practice first thing on Saturday, and then leaving the boys for the afternoon to go to Craig's cousin's fiancee's bridal shower in Buffalo.  It was a rainy, windy trip, but the shower was very nice.  After I left there, I stopped at a Kohl's nearby because I was on a hunt for a clearance dress I couldn't find in my size at home.  I didn't have any luck there.  I then stopped at the Broadway Market downtown because it was the first day of their Easter season, and I was jonesing for new Polish eggs.  I found a few I couldn't pass up and wandered around the rest of the place, ultimately leaving without any chocolate or other treats.  But it was still nice to be back.  I headed back home, stopping at Pembroke to get some caffeine via a Slurpee and then stopping again in Batavia when I remembered there was a Kohl's there.  I still didn't find the dress I was looking for, but found a different one for only $10!  I think it will work for the wedding in June.  I also found some PJ pants for Carter for next winter.  While I was in the store, I could hear the pouring rain outside, but by the time I checked out it was sunny with blue skies.  The wind was ramping up, though, and by the time I got home the clouds had moved back in.  We did dinner out since it was already getting late.  But it was a good, full day.  

Sunday was pretty uneventful.  I spent most of the day getting things prepped for the trip.  I pulled out spring clothes since the weather looks like it will be mostly in the 60s, did a bunch of laundry, and got my packing list together.  I still have a few things to figure out, but it's getting there.  Thursday night is going to be very stressful as I'm trying to get it all together and figure out where everything fits.  

My bigger stress is starting to be what I'm leaving back home.  It's hard enough leaving Carter (and Craig--but I'm more used to him not being around from all his travel) for this long, but I worry about how they'll function while I'm gone and what I'll come back to.  I handle the vast majority of domestic tasks around here--I'm usually the one who remembers to bring in the mail or take out the garbage, I wash the dishes and load and run the dishwasher, I am wiping down the kitchen constantly, I handle all the cooking.  I'm trying to think of ways to decrease the number of times they'll need to eat out, and ways to document things that may need to take place while I'm gone.  Luckily there's no school so he won't need to regularly pack lunches or be aware of Carter's orchestra/chorus schedule past this Friday.  They're trying to think of fun things to do while we're gone since Carter doesn't get a lot of solo time with Craig, but I worry that they'll be so busy keeping busy that I will come home to piles of dishes and laundry, an empty fridge, and things like that.  It's not that Craig is irresponsible, but it's just not habit for him and I have a feeling all of the stuff he will need to take on will feel like a lot, which means some things will fall through the cracks.  I want to be helpful because he's at such a disadvantage from not having to do a lot of these things on a regular basis, but I have enough stuff on my end that I'm trying to prepare for that I'm not sure how much time or bandwidth I have to go above and beyond for this.  My nerves went up an extra notch when I saw a graphic from a news station in Buffalo predicting 70+ mph winds for Buffalo on Saturday.  It's still early and that was only one model (both of my weather apps are saying 50mph or so), but it's just one more wrinkle I didn't need.  Carter will be there from Friday night to Monday morning staying with my parents while Craig is in Philadelphia for a game, and it concerns me that there could be damaging winds or power outages while he's there.  It's hard enough to be away from him, let alone in a situation where I'd be extra protective if I was there.  Ugh.  I'm just struggling with finding the right balance of what I can leave to Craig to handle and what would be asking too much.  Maybe typing up some cooking instructions or day-by-day suggestions will be my task on the plane when my brain can finally relax a bit...maybe.  

I'm now starting to work through some of the other logistical stuff--where the gluten-free restaurants are, how we're spending our free time and work time, what other hotels we'll be staying at in between tournament hotels, and the like.  There are still a lot of things to work out.

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So, I took a break last night as I was finishing this post, and in that period of time, Jacob had a complete freak-out about staying the whole week.  I think he hadn't been shooting well this week and realized that he won't be able to go to practice at home next week, and he is concerned about when he will be able to practice or even put up some shots, and a switch flipped.  His concerns with being able to eat properly for all these days was weighing on him, too, which only made it worse.  He accused me of not telling him enough about the trip--costs, what we're doing--but I did tell him, repeatedly.  I can't help if he didn't think through things or internalize them.  I asked him point blank before I booked if he was sure he was OK with being in a hotel room a lot while I worked in the mornings, and he said yes.  So what more should I have done there?  He's just back to the same crap I dealt with at the Jersey Shore, before we left for Disney, and after the overbooking debacle in Cleveland, where he doesn't trust me and thinks I screw up travel all the time.  I knew his good mood was probably too good to be true, and here we are.  I was up past midnight working through scenarios to change our travel, but it would be quite expensive and there honestly just isn't enough time or brain space to work through all of the logistics again.  We simply have to make it work.  Luckily Craig contacted his trainer today as he knew he was staying in Branson all week with a bunch of the older players, and he said he definitely wanted Jacob to hang out with them as much as possible.  That should help him get some playing time in.  So hopefully I can drop him off, get some work done, and then pick him back up later.  We still need to figure out what might happen when they're together during meal times, but at least he perked up a little at the prospect of being with them even if he's still super negative about the trip as a whole.  I agree it's not going to be easy--there's a lot we have to figure out on the fly and there are a million moving parts.  We will miss home and our beds and Craig and Carter.  But he needs to learn some resilience, how to have patience, and how to have backup plans and make eating on the road work.  He seems to be convinced that he won't need those skills later despite being hopeful about college basketball, but he more than likely will at some point in his life.  

Anyway, I'm down to the last bits of packing.  I have only a handful more things to add to my bag before I'm down to anything I still need to use tomorrow.  I packed Carter's bag tonight.  Jacob's...is a work in progress.  Things are tense around here and at this point I'm dreading this experience for a bunch of different reasons--Jacob's stress, missing Carter, bad weather--it's a lot. Stay tuned for what is sure to be an eventful few days...

Scatterbrain

One of my biggest fears with COVID floating around (especially in my own house most recently) is that if I catch it, I will have a very long period of brain fog.  When I got exposed last year, in the midst of my month-long headache, brain fog was a huge struggle.  That was just an exposure and not a full-blown infection, so I can only imagine what a higher viral load might do to me.  It's hard enough to have the energy and organization to do things around the house, but it's absolutely devastating to my work.  My job is full of small details and thinking through processes that require a lot of focus--generally like a big puzzle.  When my brain isn't working right, that kind of thought process is almost impossible, which makes my work impossible.  There are so many details I need to get right, and one minor thing could throw off an entire mailing list.  It's scary and has always been a concern of mine since last year's month-long struggle.  But even on a good day, keeping my brain on target is hard...hence why the slightest additional challenge scares me.

Lately I've had this trend while working where my mornings are scattered and unproductive, but my afternoons end up more productive and sometimes even deeply focused--hence the zombie fog I mentioned in my last post.  The morning lack of focus has been concerning to me--is my brain starting to degrade?--but I realized recently that it's not just me.  It's the work I need to do in the morning that's screwing them up.  It's hard to stay focused when I'm bored or annoyed with what I'm doing, and every morning involves one tedious and annoying--but very important--task that I hate.  Beyond that I have a number of annoying tasks that constantly interrupt each other.  My mornings are full of emails...and responses, and responses to my responses.  By the time I do those, run a couple reports, and try to start the most pressing project on my to do list, it's already lunch and it feels like I got nothing of significance done.  Then, if I'm lucky, I have a panic-induced afternoon hyperfocus just to catch up and feel like I accomplished something, which is satisfying but mind-numbing.  But some days nothing works, and add in meetings or kids at home and it's a wonder I get anything done.  Ultimately I'm just doing too many little things at any given moment, and I have to keep each project moving, so even the few minutes I might spend on each daily adds up to a lot.  And good luck trying to focus or think through a tougher project with emails popping up and other tasks forcibly moving themselves up the priority list before I have a chance to forget them.  It's been exhausting and it's been like this for over a year, but I'm just now starting to understand why it's been so hard.  The sheer volume is just too much.  And then when my own personal life adds its own set of tasks and thoughts to the mix, it gets even worse.  My brain is full and has ceased to be able to organize it all.

So you can imagine how the past 10 days has been, dealing with work stuff and then alternating my non-work thoughts between COVID-infected Jacob and the trip we're supposed to be on two weeks from now.  COVID Jacob was a bit needy--refusing to make himself food lest he contaminate the kitchen, leaving a full day's assortment of dishes and bottles in the basement, and complaining about homework, wearing a mask, and feeling generally terrible.  He tested negative on Wednesday night but still felt pretty awful on Thursday, at which point I started wondering if Long COVID might be a concern.  He seemed to feel a bit better over the course of the day, so we did let him go to practice that night, in part to be involved and in part to see if he could do physical activity.  He was tired but seemed to do okay, but the hangover the next day was a bit rough after not just being off the court for a week, but barely moving off the couch.  Saturday was equally iffy.  Hopefully he continues to improve, but it might be slower than expected, leaving some worry in the back of my mind.

But I have to put that aside to try to focus on the trip.  And getting my life ready for the trip.  Those are two very different things, for the record.  I can't hold off for another couple weeks waiting to make sure he's okay, and then have to scramble.  There is way too much that needs to happen in the next two weeks for that.  We officially committed to the 11-day Midwest odyssey in part because I think it will be easier to work a bunch of half days than have four days completely offline for travel.  I might be totally wrong, but I'm erring on the side of adventure and at least I won't have a hundred emails in my inbox multiple times.  I held my breath and booked the flights the other night, confident I had found the best options but still terrified of the entire prospect of this trip.  I reserved a rental car Friday night in a slight panic when I realized the prices the Hertz site had showed me were weekly prices, not the full prices, and I need a lot more than a week.  That blew the budget, but I found one closer to what I was expecting via Alamo...so we'll see.  I still have to figure out non-tournament hotels, but I might do those on the fly as we figure out how much we have to do in each city.  I'm relieved we know our flights (and the times are decent--whew) so I can start planning everything else, but there are still so many thoughts floating around in my head that will be endlessly distracting.

I now have a running list on my phone of random stuff I need to do before we leave and odd things I have to remember to pack--things like a laundry bag (we'll likely have to do a load somewhere along the way), my optical mouse, the GPS (easier than killing my phone battery), and some simple tableware so we can microwave food and eat in the hotel room.  And that's probably just the beginning.  At first I thought that packing for this should be easy compared to Disney, but as this list grows I'm not so sure.  I'm already picturing how frantic I might be the day before we leave when I'm working an event until 3:30 (on top of an event the day before) and need to wrap up my in-office existence with enough time to come home, make dinner, finish packing, and go to bed incredibly early.  

In the meantime, I have so much going on at work, half of it being catch-up projects from my last insanely busy stretch and the other half being prep for our upcoming Day of Giving a little over a week after I get back.  The first weekend back is an off weekend (much to my boss' delight) and the weekend after the Day is only a Massachusetts trip, so that will be manageable.  But the lead-up is going to be a lot, and I'll also be trying to get a mailing out while I'm gone.  At home, I have Easter prep to keep in mind.  Before that I need to wrap up our taxes, notify Jacob's school when he'll be out, and prepare what I can to make sure Craig and Carter are functional and aren't eating out for a week straight.  Oh, and did I mention our kitchen faucet started leaking so that's getting fixed tomorrow?  So guess who spent this weekend cleaning the house (again) and bringing out the spring/Easter decorations, in between Carter's final game (a WIN!) and his year-end celebration taking up our afternoons?  Oh, and I booked our flights for our Wichita weekend, gathered most of our tax documents, and did two loads of laundry.  Not too shabby, but merely a start.

Despite the accomplishments, there's still so much left for me to ruminate over.  I feel like I'm borderline obsessive, second-guessing and overthinking everything.  It just adds to the brain clutter and partially diverts my attention from the rest of my life.  Now that the travel is mostly booked, now I get to fixate on worrying about how it all goes.  Part of me wonders when I got to be such a worry-wart and so afraid of going out into the world.  Ten years ago, despite having a newborn and four-year-old at home, I planned a cross-country trip on 24 hours' notice.  I packed up myself and both kids, dropped them off with my parents, flew to Seattle by myself (on standby even, ha), rented a car, drove south to Tacoma to wander around Chihuly stuff, then back north through Seattle and over the border to Canada where I met up with Craig.  And then after 36 hours of fun, I drove two hours before dawn back to the airport by myself on about four hours of sleep, dropped off the car, and flew cross country again.  This time I have weeks to plan, very little time crunch, a short list of fun activities, and a travel buddy, yet I'm freaking out.  I guess in the meantime I've had a couple canceled trips and lots of COVID interruptions, so my brain is all too aware of what could go wrong.  When I did that crazy trip I was still in newborn baby fog and the desire to get out and have some fun (and not miss a championship) probably far outweighed any fears.  It was all just pure adventure, knowing I probably wouldn't have another chance to do something like that for a long time (I didn't).  At the same time, COVID stole a lot of opportunities to travel and I cursed myself for a couple years for not squeezing in more fun while we had a chance.  I know lacrosse travel got in the way a bit, but we should have figured it out anyway.  The kids will only be young for so long and we'll only have a few chances to take amazing trips together.  Hindsight is 20/20, of course--we never imagined a pandemic getting in the way--and Disney was a good start to get back on track.  These trips will be putting a pretty big dent in the budget again, but I hope Jacob and I make some good memories, and I hope we can still do something as a family.  We need more good memories and I want to make sure Carter gets some fun where we can cram it in.  So I guess I'm surprised that my COVID fears and my COVID FOMO haven't canceled one another out a bit better, but I guess we'll see where this goes.  

Anyway, all that to say, I have a busy 12 days ahead.  And I sure hope my brain clears up enough to make it through.

Three Years

Three years ago today was the last normal day.  Ever, apparently.  

Well, I suppose it wasn't entirely normal.  The whole week leading up to that Friday the 13th had been full of hints that our old normal was about to be shot to smithereens, but up until Friday we were all still at work and school and it seemed like maybe we'd go through a period of difficulty and then get back to normal soon enough.  But after Friday (or maybe my hellish Wegmans trip Thursday night), I think we started to realize that maybe this was going to be more complicated than we thought.  And even then, I think a few months seemed like a lot, almost unthinkable.  Ha.  And now here we are three years later living as much of our new normal as we can.  It seems pretty safe to say that old normal is never coming back.

I've said before that I'm thankful we didn't know then what we know now.  I'm not sure I would have mentally made it through that.  The one-day-at-a-time mentality was nearly all we could do to get through the hardest parts.  Looking at over 1,000 days--and likely, the entire rest of our lives in some way--it would have been even more overwhelming and impossible to fathom.  Some days it's still hard to believe all that we've come through.

A co-worker and I were discussing last week how the pandemic is so mind-bending.  In some ways we feel like life paused, despite lots of proof that it continued to move on.  She said still feels like she's still that fresh out of college kid in many ways, despite years and a job change to prove otherwise.  I can't believe that Carter was in first grade and is now in fourth.  Somehow that's weirder to me than that Jacob was in sixth and would be a freshman this year had he not reclassified--but maybe that's only the case because he's not a freshman.  Then again, the other day his old school accidentally sent us a notification of a re-enrollment fee to be charged to our account (Seriously? After a year?), and seeing 10th grade next to Jacob's name made me do a double-take.  But maybe that's because I had to work so hard to be okay with him being in 8th again, and with so much talk about 9th next year (primarily because of how it relates to basketball), 10th still seems so far away--even if that's in line with most of the classes he'll be taking next year.  Before all this started, Jacob was half a head shorter than me, and now he towers over me by about 10 inches.  Carter went from just a tiny little guy to my big kid ride buddy.  Craig was in his first season of the new Knighthawks, and now he's been there almost four years.  I was firmly in my early 40s with nearly five years under my belt at work, and I'm constantly caught off-guard when I realize how both of those things have progressed....all because it felt like parts of life were standing still for so long.  Some things don't possibly feel that long ago, and other things feel like a lifetime ago.  But then again, I guess it almost was another life--one that was carefree in a way we didn't even realize, without dramatic changes and constant looming stress.  Either way, three years of upheaval sounds pretty significant, and I'm struggling to process it.

I guess one could argue that the most impactful time of the pandemic was really those first three months, and we've progressively moved back toward normal since, albeit with random spikes here and there.  But those first three months were awful.  Kids home from school, no family gatherings, no activities, sparse grocery stores, lots of fear and stress.  Then the George Floyd stuff happened and that just added another layer of surrealism, and the following six months were focused on the presidential race and Trump's much-debated handling of the pandemic response.  Summer eased some things up a bit, but going back to a still-abnormal school year and continuing to work from home prolonged the trauma a bit.  That first Christmas was a tough one, especially because of the first positive test to hit our house, and that was followed by another tough period of jammed hospitals and lots of stress.  Once the vaccines hit, things seemed to get better for a while, but then a new variant arrived, cases spiked, and a lot of things were back in question again.  At least Carter went back to school four days a week that spring and we made progress on his ADHD by summer, but we had another summer free-for-all around our house, and I spent most of that time wanting nothing more than to get them away from screens and back to normal school.  I've lost track of all the stops and starts I had with going back to the office by that point.  We had at least a couple target dates come and go, but it took an entire additional year beyond what was expected to get into any sort of groove on the in-office front, and we already know the hybrid schedule is in place for another 15 months.  That's a good thing, per my last post, but I've always wondered in the back of my mind if knowing what started this work-from-home thing will always bring with it a little subconscious distress.

I think by last spring, once Craig and Jacob had both had COVID and earned some immunity (and I didn't catch it and found out via blood testing I had immunity too), that was when a lot of things started feeling more normal.  We started wearing masks less.  We had more normal sports and school events.  We were less hesitant to travel.  But more than two years of illness and fears and masks and vaccine questions and a frustrating news cycle and just enough oddness had taken its toll.  And even with a lot of things feeling more normal for nearly a whole additional year now, there is still a lot of trauma there.  There are still things I think twice about, things I miss or wish could be different, things that we didn't do when we thought we would, and on top of it all, there's still that underlying concern about when COVID might strike next and ruin our plans.

Speaking of which...Jacob woke up the day after his last game feeling tired.  It had been a late night with a lot of adrenaline, and he had some nagging homework to finish so he was angling for a day off.  But knowing how much school he'll be missing starting in a few weeks, we were hesitant to allow that.  But when he was still feeling cruddy and sounded pretty congested the next day, we kept him home.  He tried to go to school on Friday but due to a series of events while getting ready, he stayed home again.  Saturday he woke up still feeling off, but he was supposed to have basketball practice so we figured we really should test because he'd feel terrible if he got his teammates sick and it would provide a legit excuse to miss it, which I think he sort of needed because of how he was feeling.  It was a bit of a weird test to read while it was processing, but sure enough, through the little tube it became clearer--two lines.  Well, crap.  Here we go again, round 3 for Jacob.  On the bright side, Jacob was technically already on day 3 of quarantine when we found out, which meant less time squirreled away in the basement.  Good thing, since he's been hating it a lot this time.  I hate COVID weeks too, because it means masking up to deliver meals to the basement and feeling bad that I don't want to hang out with the sick one.  There's a lot of guilt and awkwardness and a missing piece around the house.  Jacob thought his congestion was getting better a couple days in, but then the fever hit Saturday so he's been a bit of a lump.  It doesn't look good to go back to school tomorrow on his first eligible day back, and we'll likely have to figure out if he needs to get checked for heart issues before he goes back to basketball.  One small consolation is that he likely won't have to worry as much about getting COVID again during his upcoming season and all this travel, but it still stinks.  Craig was feeling pretty terrible leading up to his roadtrip this weekend as well, but his tests before and after his trip were negative, so hopefully he's okay.  So far so good for Carter and me, too, interestingly, but I'm working from home for at least a couple days and taking Zicam with every hint of a headache or extra congestion.  At least it happened at a time where we have a little lull, but it's definitely something we didn't need.

Anyway, getting back to the lingering trauma, just the other day I was having a bit of a zombie moment in my car on the way home from work. I felt really tired and in a fog, like I never snapped out of my work focus.  I know I had days like that pre-pandemic because of the depth of the data I work with, but I feel like that's happened more recently where work just sucks the life out of me.  Going into the office wasn't so bad for a while--it was good to see people and get a change of scenery.  But over the past few months, it's gotten harder.  People aren't exactly diligent about their in-person days, so some days it feels pointless to be there.  It's an earlier morning for me and an extra lunch to pack, and I always feel like I'm leaving chores at home that I'd love to knock out when I need a screen break.  The people-ing isn't as exhilarating/exhausting as it once was, but a typical work day still causes me a bit more fatigue than I'd like, and being in the office usually makes that worse.  It's not like I worked less over the pandemic, so all I can figure is that all of the extra stress outside of work has just left my brain's tolerance lower.  Days where I'm immersed in my work for hours, like that day in the car, are more exhausting than they used to be.  Home days are usually easier because I can break the tension with some background TV and get a couple home things done in between tasks, but even some of those days have left me in that post-work fog.  I really think that all of the traumas--big and small--that the pandemic brought are taking longer than expected to heal.  We were warned that being "on guard" for so long wasn't healthy, and I guess this is the result.  I've mentioned before that "extra" things like event planning or birthday gift buying have felt harder, and I'm even struggling more with weekly meal planning, which I'd been doing pretty dutifully since our grocery trips were limited to once a week.  I think the expected healing collided a bit with "hitting the wall" of certain routines, and where it feels like things should be better, they're just sort of stuck.  Functionally I'm fine enough, just more tired--mentally and physically--but it means I'm pushing through more than I'd like.  I think half the battle is finding the balance between self-care and pushing yourself to reasonable levels, giving yourself a little grace while still keeping up productivity and not giving in to the urge to just cocoon like we did so much in those early days.  Having things to do and look forward to helps, but like I said before, all of the "extras" bring along some additional burdens, so it takes a little more work to actually get to the good stuff.

The good news is that the kids don't seem to have the same kind of lingering trauma (that we can tell, anyway), and we still managed to cram in some good stuff.  Jacob actually enjoyed most of the pandemic because he liked remote school and appreciated having extra time at home in the summer.  Carter had a harder time, obviously, but aside from struggles with school and Jacob (which might have happened anyway), I don't think it was a particularly awful time for him, either.  He got a taste of summers at home, had lots of screen time (which he loves, even if it's not good for him), and only had to see his least-favorite teacher ever in-person a couple days a week.  Not to mention that it probably got us an ADHD diagnosis sooner and provided Carter and me the opportunity to do some adventures we might not have done otherwise.  So, not all bad.  I look at all the pictures I've taken over these three years, and while there might have been more without the pandemic, what we crammed in despite all the limitations was actually pretty impressive.  Here are some of the good things, as recalled through my photos:

• My ventures into baking of cookies and bagels, and my flower planting--oh, the zinnias!
• Experiencing a quiet Christmas at home (I liked it better when we didn't have to miss anything)
• Lots of basketball and a variety of short-ish trips (one of which led to the discovery of our beloved FLX Fry Bird!)
• Family adventures to Mt. Hope Cemetery, Warner Castle, Watkins Glen, Niagara Falls, Powers Farm Market, a Blue Jays game in Buffalo, Chimney Bluffs, the Jersey Shore, New York State Fair, Cleveland (minus Craig), and best of all Disney
• Carter's and my many adventures to tons of playgrounds and parks, multiple lakeshore areas, Darien Lake, the Rochester Museum and Science Center, Pittsburgh/Kennywood, and the Buffalo Zoo lanterns 
• My solo escapes to the Corning Museum of Glass, the Van Gogh exhibit, Taughannock and Treman state parks, Animal Adventure Park for Jungle Bells, and visits with my godson 

Some of these cool things probably would never have happened without the pandemic, so I guess I can find positives in getting out of our old habits and doing something different for a bit.  I often wonder what state of burnout we'd be in currently if things had continued as they were.  I mean, as hard as the pandemic was and is, there was a period where I realized how oddly refreshing it was to change things up a bit, and also have the expectation that things would continue to evolve for a while.  Unless things are going perfectly, monotony can sometimes be such a burden over time--getting up early, packing the lunches, making the same commute, slogging through work, coming up with dinner, getting everyone in bed...rinse and repeat.  But suddenly we had a break in it.  It didn't come without its pitfalls, but it was different.  The endless slog you pictured suddenly didn't look the same, and in fact was blurrier than ever.  And for a while, it felt like a little bit of a relief...in the most twisted way possible.

But at the end of the day, despite everything, Jacob still got to play a lot of basketball, Carter got some much-needed help that has served him so well, I get to work from home half the time and have a lot more flexibility, and Craig got a much-needed break from his crazy work life for a bit, which probably prolonged his career (although having 20+ games canceled makes hitting his 400th straight game an even longer, harder task to accomplish, especially with COVID still floating around).  I can't say this is the path I would have chosen for us, but three years later at least I can say we're making some decent lemonade out of the lemons we were handed.  There are still some things I will never forgive this pandemic for--loss of a family member and friends struggling with chronic illness among them--but it could be much worse.  I'm still not sure where three years have gone, but I'm thankful we're here to tell the tale--and it's not half bad!

News & Notes, How is it March Edition

So...they lost.  But it was a far more interesting game than we anticipated.  Not that we didn't think there was a chance they'd make it competitive--they've been surprising people for a few weeks now.  But when you're playing a team that only lost once all year and it was to a team ranked even higher than them, you've got your work cut out for you.  We made the drive out past Canandaigua to Marcus Whitman High School Tuesday evening.  We were surprised the gym wasn't a little bigger since this was a neutral site game, and found ourselves a bit confused that three sets of bleachers were mainly the Lyons' fans and we had one set of bleachers for ours that weren't even entirely open.  It was a tight squeeze, and partway through the game there were a lot of people watching from the doorways.  Lyons looked good early, but slowly but surely, one play at a time, we hung in there.  A couple threes here, a couple stops there...and before we knew it, we were winning.  Even more interesting, the guy who took Jacob's starting spot looked terrible--he just couldn't seem to handle the other team defensively--so he got taken out pretty quickly and Jacob went in.  Jacob missed a couple shots initially but did get one three in the first half.  Things were going shockingly well until Andrew, our best player, came down awkwardly on his bad ankle.  He was in a lot of pain and came right off, unlike a lot of other games.  In the end, they taped him up and he went back out, but it was clear he was uncomfortable.  After he got hurt, we didn't score for a while and Lyons started hitting their shots, so they jumped out to a sizable lead.  They ended the half up by seven, and they got up by about 20 at some point in the third quarter.  Things weren't looking good at that point, but we were playing hard and Jacob got three more threes in the second half to close the gap.  In the end we only lost by 11, which was a heck of a lot less than most teams lose to them by.  We scored quite a bit more than our average and held them right around their average points, so we really would have had to do something special to pull it off, and we just weren't quite there.  Could we have pulled it off had Andrew not gotten injured?  Who knows.  It's possible, I guess, but the law of averages pretty much tells me that they would have started making their shots regardless at some point during the game, and they simply make more than us on a regular basis.  But it was good to see Jacob get 12 points and play more, and hopefully that's just a preview of next year when the post-Andrew era officially gets started and Jacob needs to be utilized more.  The team could have a lot of changes between now and then, so we'll see.  Lyons beat the C2 champ Pembroke by three, but lost to a Buffalo team today, so no States for them either.  Crazy.  Could have been fun to see what might have happened, but the sectional title was cool nonetheless.

So, now it's on to travel season.  Once I figure out how we're booking all this travel, anyway.  I am still sort of frozen with panic and need to work through it.  Some families are actually staying the entire week between the Springfield, MO and Oklahoma City trips because they're not that far from one another and the travel is less-than-ideal.  Initially that seemed overwhelming, but now I'm seriously considering it for the following reasons:

• Two less indirect flights with the potential to be screwed up (x2 cost-wise)
• If we do two trips we really only have about three days between them once you consider travel, and who wants to repack that quickly?
• Even if the money for hotels, a rental car, and meals works out to be about the same overall cost, at least we'll spend that money doing fun things and making some memories
• The vacation days could be easier to manage - With two trips I'd have four guaranteed travel days that are completely shot.  With one long trip, I'd have two full travel days and then I could scatter the other vacation days as needed - likely work every morning in the hotel, and then sightsee in the afternoon/evening, and check email again at night, or work a full day when we need a quiet day.  Jacob will have homework to do and hopefully there's a gym and/or a nearby Y for the rest of the time.
  

Admittedly, food might be a challenge for a week since we're usually limited to Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, Firehouse, and Jersey Mike's, but we can get food to eat in the room for lunch from a grocery store and hopefully utilize hotel breakfasts.  We could spend time in Branson, which is tourist heaven, stop in Tulsa (home of one of Jacob's favorite basketball schools), and wrap up in Oklahoma City.  There are lots of colleges we can peruse while we're passing through, and of course the big Chihuly exhibit in OKC, as well as the bombing memorial.  I think we could fill our time reasonably well, but I could be wrong.  Jacob seems up for it, but I don't think he understands the reality of all those days in a hotel room.  He isn't exactly into tourist stuff, and despite his Disney preference to hang at the resort, these hotels won't exactly be that.  Carter would be all over the zoos, aquariums, museums, and tourist traps, but how much will I actually be able to convince a teenager to do?  So will the boredom and changed routines be a bigger problem than we expect?

I've really been struggling with this travel for weeks, to the point of lost sleep, instant reflux and even chest tightness when I think about it.  There are so many moving parts, so many things to consider, endless (but all less-than-ideal) travel options, and lots of decisions to still be made once we get there.  I've said that I'd rather make the most of these trips than simply travel all these hours and pay all this money to sit in a gym the entire time.  The games are the reason to go, of course, but I always feel so much better when we get to experience the area and what makes it special.  Gyms 30 minutes away don't look much different than the ones 15 hours away, even if the competition is worth the trip, so what fun is it to go to some random, "domestically-exotic" city (exotic because no one you know ever goes there) and come back with zero stories or photos from the experience?  We might as well get some culture out of these trips, and when I let myself consider the single week-long trip, it was the first time I saw a bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, the first time I thought, maybe we could make this trip fun.  With the two trips it was like, "That's a lot of opportunities to have travel delays and tight timelines.  Will I miss out on doing the fun things I wanted to do on these trips if that happens, or if we have games filling the entire time?"  But with a week, we lose at least one of those inbound travel delay fears and have plenty of time to explore.  It might be worth it for that reason alone, to reduce part of the stress.  But a week felt long for Disney and this is more than that.  I will miss Carter more than life itself because I've never been away from him that long before.  On the bright side, the weather might be reasonably decent in these areas, especially once we get deeper into April, so that could be a nice bonus and make outside activities possible.  But for the most part, all of this still feels exhausting and overwhelming, even if there's also a lot of potential for fun.  

Beyond this trip I will be responsible for one in Massachusetts as well as one in Wichita.  After that it all depends on how far the Knighthawks make it into the playoffs.  I sort of want to do the St. Louis one in May regardless but would rather make that a family affair if we could, since there are a few things to do there (more Chihuly, the Arch, and their FREE zoo) and two drivers would be preferable.  Anyway, I need to start making decisions on these first two weekends because three weeks from right now, we'll be on leg #1.  Yikes.

I'm convinced that basketball season completely skewed my perception of time because all of a sudden it's March!  January usually drags, February is notable for Carter's birthday, but otherwise, it usually seems to take forever to get to this point.  But this year basketball kept us moving through each week, waiting for the next game a few days at a time, and suddenly we went from November to here in a flash.  We're now more than two months into this not-so-new year.  The time change is tonight, and suddenly we'll be back to 7pm sunsets.  The rest of March will likely speed along because of work and all those travel plans I need to make.  Easter will be here (and gone without much acknowledgement because of our travels) after that, warmer weather will follow, and then it'll be the end of school and on to summer.  Geez.  But right now it's March and my brain can't quite wrap itself around that.  Of course, the weather is doing its best to mess with us.  After four inches of snow last week, we got another six yesterday afternoon through overnight.  Of course winter couldn't be bothered to show up until the weather was supposed to be easing off.  I know that easing doesn't usually happen here for a bit even in a good year, but we have had oddly warm weeks in March before.  I'm not advocating for that, but the biggest snow dump of the year probably isn't supposed to happen in March.  It's not supposed to be the snowiest month either, but that's probably happening as well.  At least we haven't been worn down like Buffalo with giant snowstorms earlier in the year, but this timing is pretty darn obnoxious.  

This morning took a bit of a turn, which I'll get into in my next post, but otherwise, Craig left for a roadtrip around midday and Carter had his second-to-last game--another loss--and the rest of the weekend should be pretty quiet for a change.  Next weekend was supposed to be Jacob's only local tournament, as well as Carter's last game and his year-end celebration, plus a home Knighthawks game, but the tournament got postponed so at least we don't have a triple overlap.  Oh, and the weekend after that Craig is in Vegas and I'll have to leave the boys home for a few hours for another family shower.  I really wanted to go on that trip, but with the rest of the travel coming up (and horrible flights), it didn't really make sense this time around.  Sigh.  And after that, onward to the Midwest.  Yup, this month is going to fly.  Yay for killing time until spring, but I am not sure I'm ready for this...

The Big One

This past weekend ended up feeling like a very unorthodox weekend.  It was a full couple days but it was far from a normal one, so the usual weekend routines never happened.  I got to Monday and sort of felt like I missed something! 

We were set to get hit with a storm Friday night into Saturday.  That looked to complicate a number of things, including Jacob's sectional final game, Craig's travel to Canada for a Knighthawks game, my travel to Buffalo for a baby shower, and my parents' travel to Rochester for Jacob's game and coverage for my baby shower absence, since Carter had a game on Saturday.  Well, due to the forecasted storm, Section V rescheduled all of the Friday games to Sunday as of Wednesday, so we knew that took Friday's mess off the table.  I felt a little better about that, but the rest of the weekend felt very precarious and wouldn't really be settled until about an hour after I woke up on Saturday and could determine if both my parents and I could shovel out and safely drive on the Thruway in both directions...and even then there were still a couple things to work through!

The snow started around dinner time on Friday.  Craig left around 7pm to meet his colleagues at the park-and-ride for the trip up to Hamilton, which ended up being longer than usual.  I stayed up until 11pm watching the snow and then headed out to shovel.  I wanted to wait as long as possible to do one full shoveling session to give myself a little bit of a break in the morning.  The forecast had been all over the map, looking as high as 15 inches and as low as three.  There was a lot of question on rain vs. sleet vs. snow, but it seemed like the northern counties (which included us and my parents) would get the worst of it.  I was worried about my ability to shovel given my tennis elbow issues--which are better overall but finicky--and to some degree how much my heart rate seems to elevate with activity and stress these days.  I'm watching it closely, trust me, but a bunch of snow I had to shovel myself (because of the timing and not wanting to somehow injure Jacob right before his big game) did not seem ideal.  When I got outside, there were a couple inches, but it became apparent very quickly that the bottom layer was a heavy slush.  It was so hard to shovel.  It cleaned up nicely, mind you, but you couldn't push it much, so it meant a lot of individual full, heavy shovel-fulls.  It was also really windy and I was keeping an eye out because we had quite the moment of thundersnow earlier in the evening--a quick flash and a loud, long crack of thunder.  I was out about an hour, but only about five minutes in, I noticed it got darker.  At first I thought it was just our temperamental street light, which did go out, but then I realized the entire house was dark, and I definitely left lights on inside and out!  Ugh, power outage.  Just what we didn't need.  Oddly, across the street was still on and fine, but I could tell our side (which we know is on a separate line) was darker.  I cleared the driveway, came back in, retrieved the flashlight, and checked the internet to see if our outage had an estimate or if there was a new snow prediction through the morning.  Thank goodness for cellular data since the WiFi was down.  And thank goodness the outage was when we all just needed to be sleeping, warm in our beds, not needing the refrigerator or anything for another seven hours.  The initial prediction was 2:15am, but it came back on around 4am--I remembered to turn off every light switch in the house except for the one in my room, so it woke me up immediately.  

My alarm went off at 7am, and it was back out to shovel again.  It was clear we had gotten more snow, but it didn't look too crazy.  Sure enough, two more heavy, wet inches, but this time with the extra wet slush mess the plow left behind.  Another hour of shoveling and the driveway was clear.  I confirmed the Thruway looked okay--still a bit snowy but only wet roads, from all I could tell on the cameras--so I got myself ready, left the kids with instructions leading up to my parents' early afternoon arrival, and left for the 11am shower in Buffalo.  The drive was uneventful--a couple slick spots en route to the highway, but fine after that despite a constant light snow.  Just as I got to the shower, my parents were leaving for my house!  The shower was lovely--great to see a bunch of Craig's family and exciting to celebrate his cousin's impending first baby!  One sad moment was seeing Craig's cousin Matt, who's a Buffalo firefighter, because they lost a young firefighter in a big fire this week and it turned out he knew him.  So tragic.  I headed home while getting text updates from Jacob on Carter's basketball game--another loss, boo.  Two games left, so I hope they can pull one out.

My parents decided to stay overnight again in Rochester for Jacob's game.  That was the plan originally when we found out he was playing Friday and they were already coming Saturday, but we weren't sure once the game got moved and the weather was funky.  Originally my dad wanted to sing in church on Sunday, but in the end they decided to stay over, and at our house this time despite less-than-ideal guest sleeping arrangements.  They were probably more optimistic about it than I was, and I tried to give them options, but it was their choice!  We grabbed Jersey Mike's for dinner, Carter and I played some Mario Kart, and we started heading off to bed because Jacob had a game and Craig would be getting home at around 2am.

Despite the late arrival, Craig and Jacob were out the door by 8:45 for training, my parents watched their church online, and I got ready so I could run to Wegmans.  I started to cook pulled pork in the instant pot when I got home, then baked some banana-oat-peanut butter-M&M cookies while I waited.  Just as the pork got done, Craig and Jacob left for the game.  They never eat before anyway, so it was fine.  We very much enjoyed our pork and some last leftovers from last weekend's birthday party, then headed out.

It took a while to find parking and get into the arena, but we got there just in time to see the postgame festivities from the game before us.  It was a very nervewracking half hour or so, just waiting for our game and hoping it was us on the winning side of the next ceremony.  As I sat there I pondered my history in that arena--meeting Craig, starting my career, watching big games and a couple championship games--and now adding watching my son's big game to the mix.  It's pretty amazing when you think about it.  Even funnier was that our wedding DJ, a former Amerks PA announcer who has done work for Section V for nearly 40 years, was sitting at the scorer's table across the way. 

They did the anthem and a ceremonial handshake...

And then it was time to play!  We ended up getting out to a nice little lead.  It was a close game but we were making nice progress.  Jacob missed a couple threes in the first half, unfortunately, but I thought the rest of his play was solid.  I took about the worst action shot ever once Jacob got into the game.  I promise he didn't drop the ball, I just managed to get it at the exact second it bounced on the floor.

Since my skills are clearly lacking, here are a couple more cool pics that his school posted from the game:

We took a nine-point lead into halftime.  It seemed doable but we had lost bigger leads, so it was still scary.  Andrew, our senior captain, took control of the second half, and at one point we had an 18-point lead!  But Avon slowly but surely crawled back.  We've seen that before, and were hoping the coach reacted more quickly.  Jacob did make it back into the game but missed a foul shot late, which was a bummer, but in the end, we won by eight!  Section V C-1 Champs!

Jacob ended up with an assist and a rebound.  Not what he wanted for sure, but seeing them win was a great moment.

Getting the trophy

Jacob getting his goodie bag 

There were a number of awards and plaques presented, and imagine our surprise when Jacob was named the winner of the sportsmanship award!  It's essentially used as a sixth man award, and it was a nice gesture that he received that considering the season he'd had.  He's still frustrated that he lost his spot as a starter, but Jacob definitely contributed to this team and he should be proud.

The presentation from behind

How it looked from the front, as posted by the school

It was a big honor for an 8th grader to get that, and we were so thrilled for him and very proud.  If that wasn't cool enough, Andrew got the MVP award, which was a great way to end his sectional career.  It felt so appropriate and I know it made his parents happy as well.  He's not moving on to college--he can work for his dad--so this really was his big moment.  Still not his last game, as we had to move on to a state regional game now, but probably his last great moment as the next one is going to be...challenging at best.

Andrew with a net on his neck (they gave each team one rather than have them cut down) and getting his MVP award

Postgame was a little awkward as families couldn't get on the floor for any team pictures (although Craig did since he had an arena pass) but the one social media group that heavily covers Rochester high school sports sort of took over that experience.  In the end we got shooed out of the arena and had to meet them out on the street where the professional players usually exit.  

The second we ran into Jacob, he said something about wanting to go work out.  At first I thought maybe he was just bummed about missing shots, but it became clear there was a lot more going on, and his experience was nothing like the jubilant teammates he left behind.  Being a parent in a situation like this felt really, really hard.  You're expecting a happy kid and yet you have one that isn't enjoying the experience at all.  On one hand we get it, on the other we were pleading with him to try to put his issues aside for a few minutes and appreciate the moment.  He may never get to this point again.  The team is losing its best player and there's a chance another player or two might leave, but there aren't really a lot of talented players waiting to take their spots.  To be a sectional champion as an 8th grader, let alone to win an award in the process, is something special.  But he doesn't like how the win sort of validates his coach--who, to be clear, is not very good and has mishandled a lot this season--and leaves him out of the mix a bit.  It's not so much that he wants the glory (although he would probably enjoy it) but more that it frustrates him to see other people who may be less deserving--be it due to skill, effort, or the coach's misconceptions--succeed.  He knows he works harder than anyone else on the team, and he feels slighted that the coach can't see that.  He does everything that is asked of him and demonstrates stronger play than other people, but the coach continues to believe he can't play defense or takes him out after a single mistake, even though his teammates can make countless ones and stay in the game.  It seems everyone else except the coach sees his potential (and his current skill), so it's hard to understand why he continues to not play much.  I think sometimes the coach writes him off as an 8th grader, that he has time to develop and doesn't need to push it, but Jacob wants more.  He wants to be challenged, he wants the chance to succeed, and he actually understands the game better than maybe anyone else.  He just wants some respect and this coach doesn't seem willing to give it to him.  So to see the success, to see the bad habits and decisions still allow for a sectional title, I think he finds it all a little disappointing.  He knows he has bigger fish to fry this spring, so he's mostly just ready to move on, but that's not happening just yet.  They play again tonight in the state regional play down.  The odds of them winning are slim to none because the team they're playing averages about 20 more points per game and only lost once this year, to one of the few teams ranked ahead of them in the state.  Jacob is hoping that it's enough of a blowout that he will get to play, and maybe his three-pointers will be called upon to make it a closer game.  I think he's also hoping his coach's shortcomings will be exposed, because he thinks it's one of the only ways they'll actually get better.  I honestly hope that things do work out to give Jacob a chance to show what he can do, because more than likely they will need to use him next year if they want to have much offense.  Might as well start laying that groundwork now to get the coach thinking about it in the offseason.  

 

Either way, it's hard to believe this first season is almost over, but what a ride it was.  Lots of ups and downs, and sure, we wish things would have gone a bit more smoothly along the way.  But I hope someday Jacob realizes how special this was, and I hope he gets another chance to experience it, but gets to be a bigger part of it.  But first things first, one more game tonight.  It should be a tough game, but we'll see. At least we know that win or lose, Jacob has something good waiting for him on the other side.