Birthday Week in Review

We had a pretty busy week to celebrate Carter's birthday, starting from the weekend before on.  That Friday it was over 60 degrees, which meant a lovely, long late afternoon walk for me before heading to Jacob's first game back from his shin splint flare-up (a tough loss where he didn't play as much as expected).  On Saturday we had Carter's fourth game of the season.  He managed to score his first points of the season, but sadly his team also suffered their first loss.  Trust me that he took this shot--I was a little late hitting record:

 
He and I went to the Knighthawks game that night.  Jacob opted not to go and Carter figured it was better to go to the game with me than stay home being tortured by Jacob and his (loud) music tastes all night.  We had to park across the river, so we took a minute to grab a shot with this fun public art outside the library.

The game ended up being a pretty good one.  We wandered around saying hi to people since it was my first game of the season, then sat down to watch a nice comeback that ultimately fell a bit short.  

Sunday was the Super Bowl.  We had ordered food ahead from our favorite gluten-free place, so that was pretty much the big activity for the day, driving a half hour there and back to get it.  The other "excitement" was waking up to two cats in our tree.  A couple weeks ago I noticed two neighborhood strays running through the yard.  One looked familiar and other one was new--we watch the local strays closely and have given them all names, but this tan one with a darker head was new.  A couple days later I saw the new one climbing our tree in the back of the yard!  We joked about having to call the fire department like they do in the movie "Pleasantville" for cats stuck in trees (if you recall, because fire didn't exist, the firemen only handled cats...and when fire arrived, they had to yell "Cat" to get them to come put it out).  Apparently this one knew how to get down.  But Sunday morning I happened to look out and see both cats up in our tree.  The one was originally near top branch fork, but was working its way down by the time I took a picture.  You can just make out the two lumps.  They were still a good ways up, probably 20-30 feet!  One eventually ended up on our shed roof later.  Crazy cats...but they can stay if they eat the shed mice!

Tuesday was senior night at Jacob's basketball game, which meant he once again didn't play as much as we would have liked since the seniors got a lot of time.  It'll be tough seeing them go, especially because a couple are good players.  Jacob did manage five points in a game shortened by a few minutes because a spectator almost got in a fight with the opposing coach.  These charter school vs. charter school games are always wild.

Wednesday was Valentine's Day.  It was the first of two straight days of in-person work events for me, which made the day even more hectic.  I enjoyed the hot cocoa bar back at the office, but I was so scattered all day that I barely got to check my work email until about 3:45.  Never a good basis for a work day.  I rushed home after that and worked on our fancy dinner--lobster tails for me and the boys, and salmon for Craig, with roasted baby potatoes, corn, and cheddar bay biscuits, plus gluten-free, dairy-free (store-bought) cheesecake for dessert.  Dinner was great, but then I had to gather up the Valentine's gifts for the boys and start wrapping Carter's birthday gifts.  Long, busy, tiring day for me!

Thursday ended up being a weird day.  The boys went off to school, I had to go in for another event, and over the course of the day plans for our evening went back and forth.  Jacob had a game that night in Niagara Falls.  Originally we were going to go as a family and try to make it special for Carter with a fun dinner before.  But then Jacob was told he wasn't going to play because his coach wanted to rest him in preparation for sectionals the following Tuesday.  We weren't thrilled with that because limited play the prior two games made us feel like he wasn't really back in the groove yet.  It was also a bummer since some family wanted to come see him, but that meant Carter and I could stay home and go out for a fun birthday dinner.  But that afternoon, we found out he WAS going to play, and I debated what we should do.  But between a wave of snow, the timing of getting back from my event, and Carter's birthday, it ended up that only Craig went and Carter and I stayed home.  I hated to miss the game (especially since he ended up with 14 points), but I knew Carter would appreciate it.

We did gifts quickly before Craig left.

First he got the movie "Megamind"...

Then some video game headphones so Jacob can't claim his back at inopportune times...

Then an Aerobie because we had so much fun throwing a randomly-found frisbee over at his school in the fall...and now we want to take it up a notch!

And then he got some additional magnetic tiles.  

We'll get to more on those in a bit.  He had one other package in his stack.  It was two cube storage bins with a note that said to enjoy another summer of Darien Lake season passes, and also that those storage cubes were a clue to one more gift.  I led him downstairs to a giant box in our office wrapped in a sheet.

Pardon the mess behind him--there's a bunch of stuff waiting to be posted on the Buy Nothing page sitting in that room right now.

He took off the elastic bands I had used to keep the sheet on and unwrapped it to find a new desk for his room! 

It may not be exciting for him right now, especially because it means a huge organization process in his room, but I think he will like having his own homework space once it's all set up.  Of course, I put it together Saturday night and got a little overly distracted by the music quiz games we kept doing on YouTube as a family (essentially "Name that Tune" where it plays the first few seconds of a series of Disney songs or five decades worth of mainstream hits) so I screwed up something on the desk.  That meant I had to pull the backing off the one side and sadly it ripped a little too much so I have to order a new piece for that.  Sort of a pain, but I'm going to try to press forward with the project this week while Carter is off school, even if it means filling and re-emptying the desk once the piece comes in.  It's so important to get his room in order because it's a bit of a wreck and it's filled with things he barely uses--either because he's outgrown them or because he can't be bothered to look through them and decide he wants to play with them.  It's the "joy" of ADHD that he defaults to the easiest thing rather than looking through his toy areas until he finds something that interests him.  So we need to sort through the books and toys and make sure he's clear on what he has and make it easier to find things.  

Of course now Jacob is having thoughts on his room, like wanting to remove the bookshelf and giant armchair and replace them with a recliner (so he can do his leg therapy) and a table (?).  Of course he's unimpressed by my idea of using hand-me-downs we already have in the crawl space to test out if the setup is really what he's looking for before we go spend a couple hundred bucks, but we'll work on it.  He's at the age where I guess it makes sense to re-think his space and make it more comfortable for him, but sometimes his ideas aren't realistic or well-thought-out, so they end up frustrating.  Like he said he wanted "hooks" and just assumed we could figure it out.  I told him to find something on Amazon that fit what he wanted, to which he had some remark about how much cheap garbage is on Amazon, to which I explained that I was just looking for a style, not something specific to purchase.  And of course what he picked was nothing like I was thinking he meant.  But again, getting to that point with his room will take some work on his part, and we have to beg him just to clean bottles and cups out of his room, so we'll see how that goes.

Anyway, despite the cold, snowy night, Carter and I ventured out for a birthday dinner.  He picked Texas Roadhouse, and while I figured most people ate out the night before, the place was packed.  We had to wait about 20 minutes or so.  Our dinner was tasty--lots of rolls, of course, plus a steak kabob for me and mini burgers for Carter.  We were stuffed!  We got home just in time for Jacob's game to be over, so we missed the streaming.  As I said, he had a good game and his team made a heck of an effort against a state-ranked team.  But at least Carter got to have a fun night out for his birthday at a place we rarely go.  I had a later night than would be ideal waiting for them to get home, but thankfully Friday was a work-from-home day for me and was able to be a bit lower key to just get through the week and on to February break!

As I mentioned, Carter asked for magnetic tiles for his birthday.  We already have a ton of them, but he likes to build giant forts for the boys' army guy/Lego/Playmobil battles and he kept running out of squares.  Even though he may be on the verge of outgrowing them, I figured if it encouraged him to do something not on a screen, it was worth it as long as it lasted.  So I found a set with a lot of squares and he was thrilled to get building on Friday night.  He created a car ramp, and I played around with a ball drop design from a magnetic tile social media account.   

 

We eventually worked on a really tall tower, and this is where we ended up!

We figure it was about 5'8", because it towered over me too!  He's been hard at work on mini golf holes ever since.  It was an idea from social media as well, and he just ran with it.  It's a little hard to see (maybe click to zoom in) but the ball goes up a ramp and there are holes for it to drop into--and sometimes it tricks you into a hole that's not the best route to the real hole.  He's done a good job and it's nice to see him working on something without a screen.

Carter's team had a big win on Saturday over a team that was depleted from either illness or February break travel, and we had dinner out that night before the music trivia session and my ill-fated desk assembly.  Otherwise, we enjoyed Craig's last weekend off until late April (boo).  I did my monthly coffee date with a friend on Sunday afternoon, and then we had one more fun activity for the weekend, but that will get its own post! 

So, now we have an 11-year-old, a living room full of magnetic tiles, and sectional basketball is upon us--probably for less time than last year, but we'll see!