Super St. Louis, Part 1

Going all the way to St. Louis for a tournament Jacob couldn't even play in felt a little crazy, but after passing through last month and seeing the Arch in person, and knowing there was a Chihuly exhibit in town, I was on board.  Jacob had expressed an interest in stopping in New Castle, IN along the way because there's a massive high school gym there as well as the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, so he still really wanted to go.  Once Craig's season ended and he was free to come with us to reduce the driving load and stay with Jacob while Carter and I did all the things, the trip was a go!

I was struggling a bit leading up to it--simultaneously excited but nervous, making plans but also not doing the normal amount of prep ahead that I normally do.  I don't know if I thought something was going to ruin it (probably) or if I was just busy (that didn't help), but I didn't pack until the last minute and needed the half day I took before we left to get myself together.  I suppose we didn't do great on some food/snacks, but we tried, and overall I guess we got lucky I didn't forget anything big.

We left as soon as we could after picking Carter up from school at dismissal.  I think in the end it was around 4:30?  Not as soon as I wanted to get going but within the realm of what I expected.  I drove the first leg to Erie where we stopped for dinner.  I wasn't feeling particularly great--I had actually gone to the doctor for some stomach pain the day before (just because I didn't want it to get worse while we were gone if it was an easy fix).  I never did figure out exactly what it was, but I had an antibiotic just in case.  The pain subsided ahead of the antibiotic, but my system still felt a little off and my stomach gurgled a lot en route.  Luckily it ended up not being anything but a giant gas bubble, but the last few minutes before stopping I was getting nervous!

Our goal was to get to Columbus that night.  It was about six hours from home, and due to our slightly late start and Craig's preference to stay and eat at the restaurant, we were going to be getting there late.  I booked a last minute hotel on the nearer side of Columbus to save us a little time.  We had another stop or two along the way, so in the end we didn't get to the hotel until closer to 11:30.  But we didn't have to get up too early the next day, so it was fine...and it was a Holiday Inn Express, so yay for cinnamon rolls in the morning!  But of course the next morning took longer than would have been ideal, and we didn't get on the road quite as early as we would have preferred.  Our main concern was the option to go to the Cardinals game that night, but it would depend on us getting into town by dinner time.  It became clear pretty quickly that likely wouldn't be happening because we had six hours of driving plus a stop that would take a bit, and once we added in lunch, it was almost impossible.

We got off the highway in New Castle and headed toward the high school.  We found it, but it turns out the giant gym is sort of sunk into the ground so there wasn't much we could see from the road.  Plus, it was a school day so we thought it might be sketchy to look around.  We drove past it and continued on around the corner to the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.  We never even knew it existed until 2018 when we were searching for info on the Naismith National Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts when we traveled to a tournament nearby.  Craig saw this cool picture online but then realized it wasn't of that hall, but rather the Indiana one.  We sort of tucked that thought in the back of our minds in case we ever happened to pass through, and after we drove directly through New Castle on our trip home from Springfield, I think Jacob decided we needed to go next time through.  

We arrived to a nearly empty parking lot--no surprise since it was a Friday morning--and of course had to get a picture with the giant shoe outside!

This was the front.  Notice the Indiana pavers in the circle. 

Initially the entry way was low-key--just a bunch of display cases and a guy at the desk that was probably surprised to see people!  

But then we got a glimpse over the half wall down into the main space!

Their collections are impressive, and only about a quarter of what they have is on display!  They're planning on expanding.  They had everything--banners, mascots, scoreboards, old hoops, uniforms, varsity jackets, balls, trophies...just anything you could imagine from the history of Indiana basketball.  We first watched a 15 minute movie about the sport's history in the state, which was actually a nice intro to some of the names and other state-specific things we'd see referenced around the hall. 

They had this cool hallway downstairs that had an old-school concession stand and a bunch of information on the Indiana State Champions.

I loved this display of state champion pennants--there were a couple sets of them--but they looked cool.

There was so much to see, and with our limited time we couldn't really look closely, but it was truly impressive.

Around the back there was a shooting activity where you could recreate a last-second state championship-winning shot.  There were five seconds on the clock to hit it.  Of course Jacob was up first! 

He missed his first but pretty quickly made one.  And much to everyone's surprise, I walked up and made mine on the first shot!  

 

 We all eventually made it and each earned a ribbon like this!

 

We had the place all to ourselves and ended up getting a lot of individual attention from the workers there.  One was cleaning it and the other was her husband, but they both had a lot of stories and facts to share!  They were so friendly and while the husband was talking Craig's ear off, I wandered around so I could catch anything important we needed to see before taking off.  I found a Larry Bird corner...

...and his plaque among the many, many plaques on display.

This is a picture of the school gym next door.  It seats over 9,000 people--close to what the Blue Cross Arena here in Rochester holds.  Crazy to think they fill it for regular old high school basketball!

I could share a ton of pictures because the place was really amazing.  They took a picture of us before we left because they like getting people from out of state!  Oh, and before we left they suggested going to a nearby town, Knightstown, to see the actual gym used in the filming of Hoosiers.  When they said it was free, it was hard to say no.  I knew it meant no baseball game (but the rain was coming anyway, so it wasn't likely we'd be able to go regardless), and I knew Jacob would probably really appreciate it.  So off we went!

We found the spot but outside it looked pretty unassuming.  We parked on the street and walked in.

I'll admit I've probably never watched the movie the entire way through, but it was still pretty neat to see the gym in person, complete with the Hickory Championship banner on the wall.  Most of it is the same as the movie other than the scoreboard and a couple other things they needed to tweak in order to keep it as a functional high school basketball facility.  They have games all the time!

We even got a tour down in the locker room.  It was pretty rustic, which grossed Carter out a bit!  The jerseys on display are left behind by teams that play there.

The boys were excited to be able to shoot on the court!

Jacob got cleared to resume activities (slowly) a couple days before

Once again, there was almost no one else there so we got a lot of personal attention from the workers.  Craig was really into it and trust me, our souvenir haul more than paid "admission"!  It was a really neat experience, and Jacob kept talking about going back again on our way home.  Alas, our timing wouldn't quite have worked, but I'm glad we made the detour. 

It was already past lunch time so we stopped at a Chipotle outside Indianapolis for lunch and then got back on the road for the last four hours.  We passed Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the Indianapolis Colts.  I had only seen it in the dark last time and been very impressed, so it was cool to see in the day.  Craig agreed it did look huge!

The rest of Indiana and Illinois seemed to take forever.  I think by that point we were just eager to get there, and we hit some heavy rain as well.  I did catch a picture of the giant cross we saw in the dark last time, too!  It's almost 200 feet tall.  Notice I'm taking this from the driver's side...but I'm not driving.  Jacob--being super tall--kept snagging the front seat for periods of time.  Annoying, but I'll allow it because even my little legs didn't appreciate the back for too long.

Finally we got to St. Louis.  Carter was excited to see the Arch, and despite the rain, the baseball game was happening as we passed through the city.

We also saw the St. Louis Blues' arena.

We got settled in at the team hotel and then tried to quickly figure out dinner.  We found a Firehouse Subs nearby and got there just in time.  In fact, they took our trash over the counter at the end so they could empty the bins before we were done.  By that point we were having some issues with plans for the morning--Jacob wanted to find a gluten-free place, but between distance and timing and his general lack of an ability to get ready on time, it wasn't working out and he was cranky.  It got worse when Starbucks was already closed and he couldn't get his usual snacks there.  We didn't end on a particularly high note that night as a result.  It had been a long day of driving with a couple cool things, though, which meant the trip already looked worthwhile and gave me hope for the rest of the weekend.

Here we go again...

So...Jacob is off to a new school.  Again.  Next week.  This all sort of happened quickly and crazily, and while it's not the most ideal of circumstances, we're making it work.

He's been miserable at his current school for a while.  I think he fought through some of his issues there because of basketball, wanting to make things work.  But it's been a struggle--the kids tend to be a little immature--lots of food throwing and general pestering, for example--and he's had a really hard time bonding with anyone and making friends.  Even on the basketball team it could be a struggle at times, and he didn't even have any of those guys in his class.  He never really adjusted to the full schedule of classes every day and the full dose of homework every night.  We weren't thrilled with some of the curriculum as it was super focused on a Christian perspective and that doesn't always translate properly to the mainstream academic setting he will likely encounter later in life.  Basketball was fine--the sectional championship was amazing--but we knew he still had one more year before he'd be fully trusted to do his thing, and there were rumblings that at that point other players might be moving on.  Any one of those things would not have been a reason to leave, but all together he was so unhappy.  

And then his coach that he's known and trusted since he was 11 got the head coaching job at a charter school that happens to fall within our district.  With all of his unhappiness, the wheels started to turn and a little investigation turned up that, in theory, he could transfer without having to sit out a year of basketball because he was coming back into our district.  I think once that seed was planted it was hard to convince him otherwise.  The biggest problem was that he'd have a bad lottery number to get into the school for next year, but he could transfer in this year and bypass that.  We were hoping he could finish out the year at his school since it finishes earlier and then spend the last week or so at the new one, but apparently there's some sort of transfer deadline that's next week.  So that plan went out the window, and it's been a whirlwind of calls and paperwork and awkward conversations ever since.  

We went on a tour of the middle school last week, and it's in the city in an old Catholic school.  It's not fancy but it works.  He'll only be there for about 2-1/2 weeks, which should be an interesting experience for him.  Not a lot of academics at that point in the year, thankfully, so he should get a chance to make friends a bit more naturally.  It's a little odd because his classes wouldn't match up for exams since he took 9th grade classes this year, but at least he has 8th grade credit from last year anyway so not finishing the year at his current school shouldn't be an issue.  We're starting him fresh in 9th grade on a Regents track.  Even though he took 9th grade classes this year, we figure most of it will not match up since his school didn't do Regents and the curriculum was so faith-focused.  It sounds like he'll have a little more free time to do homework and get help, which will be helpful for him.  Oddly, the academic stats at this school are better than his current school.  That's impressive since most of these kids come from the city and may not have the same parental support.  But 90% get a Regents diploma and a high percentage get accepted to college.  So, we're hopeful that will be a good fit.  

I think the city kids will be a little more than he bargained for, but the vibe was definitely more his style when we toured.  The high school will be different, but it's also at a former Catholic school (but a suburban one) and they do have some new facilities (including that new gym with the elevated seating and sunken court that I mentioned when he played this school earlier in the year).  It's a little farther from home (but not as far as his previous school) and not as convenient for a commute, but it'll be okay.  I'm a little nervous about him making friends and being very much in the minority of white kids, but he does fine being the only white kid on a basketball team so I'm hoping that will translate to the classroom.  

As we were touring the middle school, we met the health/gym teacher and he suddenly realized he recognized Jacob.  It was the outgoing varsity coach, and he vividly remembered Jacob scoring five threes on his team and then getting some clutch points in another game to help defeat his team for the first time in two years of regular season games, and then contributing again when we beat them in sectionals.  He was very excited to see Jacob considering attending even though he won't be coaching anymore!  It feels odd considering how badly we wanted to beat this team this year, but we'll see how it goes.

Of course, he's leaving in his wake some disappointed people.  He was going to be a central part of the team at his old school in the coming years and I think the athletic director is very disappointed he's leaving, for a lot of reasons.  It's not what we hoped for, certainly, but sometimes you have to do hard things to keep your kid sane.  Apparently the increased interest in Jacob and other kids transferring in sparked a meeting with Section V to make sure there wasn't any recruiting happening, but I think it's really just a testament to the new coach and how respected he is by his players.  And I won't lie, the money savings doesn't hurt either.  But it still doesn't feel particularly good, and I feel like something's wrong with us that most people try to get their kids out of city schools and into the suburbs, and here we are actively putting our kid into what amounts to a city school.  I'm nervous, especially because he's pretty much out of options if this doesn't work out--prep school would be about it--but we got to a point where we didn't really have a choice because his mental health was so strained.

This is yet another one of those situations where I worry about his "grass is greener" mentality.  Every time something doesn't feel quite right, you can't just leave and move on.  So are we pushing him enough to find solutions?  Are we not teaching him resilience?  He's definitely a more challenging kid so I'm not sure we can look at this from a regular kid perspective, but it's hard to find a balance when your kid is struggling and you're seemingly fighting against whatever they see as a "solution", because they see you fighting against them.  We're still talking about getting him in to see someone to manage some of the emotions he's dealing with, because he ends up feeling trapped by certain difficult scenarios and we don't know how to help him manage that.  Life ends up being full of those things, and the sooner you learn to function through that stuff, the better.  We've done our best but we're not sure how to help him past a certain point.  So we try to be supportive, and that's what all of this is ultimately about.  He feels good about it, though I could never have left school at this point in the year and gone to a completely new place.  And now he's done it twice in a year.  It's a lot to process, even for us.  We have a lot of mixed emotions and regrets, but we don't really see any viable path that involved staying at that school because of the struggles he's had most recently.  I guess we just hope for a fresh start (now and at the high school in the fall), and hope for the best.

So that's taken up a lot of our brain space (and Craig's time) over the last couple weeks.  So this past weekend's trip to St. Louis couldn't have come at a better time to give us a little bit of a distraction.  It was much needed and ended up being pretty incredible.  It's going to take multiple posts to do it justice, so stay tuned!

Little Things Addict

I realized the other day that I think the pandemic has made me (and to some degree the rest of my family) a "little things" addict.  During the pandemic, particularly in the first few months where we rarely left the house, we tried our best to improve our days with little things--a nice walk or run, time outside with the flowers, a video call, a new game (which always ended badly), a fun snack, etc.  I baked cookies and bagels, we sought out new but safe experiences, ordering food in was a much needed break, and eventually just getting a $1 frozen drink (Slurpee or Freeze) was my favorite "you survived something" treat.  We could justify it early on because we weren't spending much money on anything else, especially gas or workday lunches or travel.  It just brought a little extra joy into a tough time. 

But...three years later I think we're sort of addicted to the little dopamine boosts, because the Slurpees and snacks have become more regular, and--particularly for me--craving the little moments of adventure or beauty has become more of a desperate seeking out rather than merely a fear of missing out.  If that's the biggest price we have to pay from three years of various levels of mental distress and stress response, I suppose that's not too bad, but it has its share of downfalls.  Previously I would keep an eye out for cool opportunities and make an effort not to miss out.  Now I feel like if nothing crops up for a few days I go into desperation mode to find something to spice things up.  I get bummed if I realize I haven't taken any phone pictures for days in a row.  I get really bummed and frustrated if something exciting doesn't work out.  It's a much more urgent case of FOMO, so to speak.  Before it was just a bummer, and now it's something that will nag at me for a while.  It's why I was so desperate to hit up those spots in Oklahoma City and why I felt a little "meh" about the Missouri trip where we didn't do much.  COVID made me not take that stuff for granted, and now it's like I'm on a mission to make up for lost time and make the most of my opportunities moving forward.  It's not a bad thing, it just has the potential to make me a little more susceptible to life-induced mood swings than I would prefer.

Last weekend when we were getting ready to head to Buffalo, I was really wrestling with the wisdom of actually going.  With all we were going through with Jacob, part of it seemed unwise.  We should stay home, give him time to do his work and get good sleep.  But I knew he was eager for the change of scenery, and honestly so was I.  I didn't want to skip it, in part because a weekend at home battling screens and playing kid referee is such a downgrade from doing something different.  And yes, it was just Buffalo (admittedly I was hoping we'd play the Toronto Rock so we could swing a trip to Canada and maybe hit up an IKEA), but we were staying in a cool hotel and had a chance to check out a few neat things in the city.  When I threatened Jacob with having to stay home if he could not get his butt moving on Friday morning, I was really struggling with having to follow through on that one.  Thankfully he cooperated, but I felt like that would have had super negative mental consequences for me, even though I would have done it if it was beneficial for him.

Craig left earlier on Friday and got a ride with a colleague, and the boys and I got on the road in the early evening.  We stopped for dinner at Mighty Taco on the way into town, and got to the hotel just as the sun was setting.  Our room had giant windows and and insane view!

Lake Erie is on the left, Canada is straight ahead

We spent a little time in a banquet room with the team as they watched the other divisional matchup, but eventually retreated to the room and settled in.  It was a funky, modern room with wallpaper that looked like cassette tapes, a modern dividing wall between the bathroom area and living space, and a cool corner booth with a table.  The first night was not a great night of sleep for me for some reason, but good enough, I guess.  Yet I still managed to wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  We did have this view, though.

Craig had to head out relatively early, but I let the kids sleep in so Jacob especially could rest up.  But by the time I tried to get everyone moving and was met with resistance, it took forever to get out of the room.  We had to go out for breakfast, which isn't easy with Jacob, but it took an eternity just to get to the point of getting out of the room because Jacob was doing his usual morning sloth impersonation.  Finally, just as we were ready to get out of the room, we realized the thermostat was off in the room. U turned it back on and adjusted it, as the room had gotten a little warm.  Carter didn't really understand how it worked so he saw the current room temperature and thought he needed to adjust it further, and Jacob was being a jerk about it since the night before and kept talking about it needing to be at 64, which was clearly too cold.  As both kids were reaching for it to fight over it, I went to swat Jacob's hand away and accidentally scratched him.  I momentarily realized there was something under my fingernail, which happened to be HIS SKIN.  I caught him just wrong, apparently, and left him with a pretty good scratch across the top of his hand.  He was clearly unhappy and felt terrible, but that turned into a whole thing of trying to clean it out and find a bandaid.  By the time we got down to the parking ramp, I was so frazzled I went the wrong way (it was two-way at least, but ended up at a dead end), and then when we tried to get out at the gate, the key that Craig said should work did not, and I was honestly not in the mood to pay some ridiculous amount for parking.  And with everything else that was happening, I was just OVER IT.  I turned around and went back to park.  We called Craig and he said he was done so if we came we could pick him up and go get breakfast.  By this point it was nearly lunch time (for him in particular) so that frustrated me, too, because our whole day would be off now.  He said he'd expense the parking, but when I finally went through it, I realized I never got a receipt, which frustrated me even worse.  We picked up Craig but got detoured twice by some motorcycle event.  We finally worked our way back and found a Starbucks, which was good for Jacob but Carter and I wanted Tim Hortons down the road.  We parked so the big boys could go in, and as I sat there annoyed by my morning, SOMEONE REAR ENDED ME.  I mean, you can't make this stuff up.  It was just ridiculous.  I was insisting it was not my day and that was absolute, 100% proof.  Oh, and then they drove away.  I got out to check for damage and thankfully there was a mere scuff, nothing worse than the rest of normal car wear-and-tear, so at least that was good, but what.the.heck.

We continued on to Tim Hortons but I was just done by that point.  I got an iced coffee, bagel sandwich, and a misery donut, and we all sat and ate.  I guess the rest of the day got better after that.  I worked out for a bit with Craig and Jacob, and then Carter and I swam in the pool for about 30-45 minutes.  The pool was a bit cooler than would have been ideal but it had the original tile work from when it was the Buffalo Christian Center (which I only found out after the fact--I remember going on a field trip there to play mini golf when I was a kid) so it felt sort of neat.  It was tolerable, though, and we had a good time swimming and racing, even if I was already beat from a decent workout!  

We headed back upstairs just as Craig and Jacob were leaving for the game.  Jacob was going to sit with Craig in the press box.  I cleaned up and Carter and I left a little while after to take the trip down Main St. to the arena.  I was really looking forward to this mini adventure with him--one of the "little things" I would have really regretted missing out on had we not gone.  First we had to walk a block up and over to get to Main.  We saw this cool old ad on the side of a building as we popped out into the Theatre District.

We walked past Shea's and up toward the Fountain Plaza Metro station.  Our plan was originally to ride the Metro all the way up, but we were trying to grab dinner and the easiest option appeared to be a Subway a couple stops up.  So we rode from Fountain Plaza to Lafayette Square, only to find out that the Subway closed earlier than Google said.  So not only couldn't we eat there, but we were now off the Metro schedule, so we had to walk for a bit.  It was fine--nothing too long, and the weather was perfect.  We saw a Tesla statue...

Note the lightning bolt in his hand

...a Pulaski statue, and a bunch of cool architecture, including the elaborate columns of the Ellicott Square Building.

I was probably most eager to make our way to Canalside, which I had never really gotten to explore since it had been put in.  This is the area adjacent to the existing naval park (which I have been to) that sits mostly in the footprint of my beloved Aud.  The Sabres' former home, and my absolute favorite place to be for most of my teenage years, sat on this site.  It took years for it to be torn down, and then years for development.  But what's there now is cool.  They put the original canal route back in (now it ends in North Tonawanda, but it used to go here), which turns into a rink in the winter.  There are bridges, a children's museum, a carousel, and some other cool stuff.

I had never gotten to see Shark Girl up close, and we both took a turn sitting with her!

Carter is sadly a bit old for the Explore and More Museum, so hopefully it's around through grandparenthood...haha.

The museum is on the left--note the bike up top.

I sighed a little when we got to this spot.  Not long ago they shared plans for new residential to go into the last plot of land on the property.  But that wall in the distance was part of the Aud's foundation.  The Metro goes right by where the Auditorium stop used to be (right side of the photo), and the Aud entrance was right there.  I could still picture it as we drove by.  The main entrance was on the left, and I couldn't help but wonder where center ice might have been.  It was bittersweet--I could still picture it, but that won't be the case for much longer once this gets built up.  Progress is good, but I still miss it.

Across from the no-longer-new arena that replaced the Aud is a statue of Tim Horton, who started the donut shops, played for the Sabres, and tragically died after a couple years with the team.  I had to tell Carter the stories about how Grandma and Grandpa were season ticket holders back then.

Across the street is a Tim Hortons location that is very heavily themed with him and the Sabres' blue and gold.  I suggested we get pretzel bagels toasted with butter, but alas, they only had one so I let Carter have it.  I'd eat at the game.

He loved it!  And fear not, I got one the next morning.

The game itself was...rough.  We met up with Craig's parents and ended up sitting in the fifth row in a sea of rabid Bandits fans.  At least they were respectable, especially since we had to sit through 20 goals and losing by 12.  A loss would have been one thing...but that kind of a loss?  Yuck.  I had sworn off that arena years ago for that exact reason and only went because a) it was a nice change of scenery for the weekend; and b) losing wasn't the worst thing in the world if it meant Craig would be free to take the St. Louis trip.  Yes, playoff runs are fun, but they are now super long (most of the championships we celebrated were this time of year--now it goes to June).  In this specific case it meant more to have Craig free to travel (and not book absurdly expensive and scarce hotel rooms for this weekend in the midst of a half dozen college commencements and the upcoming PGA Championship).  So I figured even if being there was still bad luck, at least there was a benefit.  But going out that way was not fun.

We attempted to find food postgame but failed, so the three of us settled back into the room while Craig joined the coaches at a nearby bar.  He had a rather late night.  But, we were up and out at a reasonable time nonethless so we could grab brunch (another Starbucks/Timmy's run) and head to the outlets in Niagara Falls.  Carter was looking for cleats but decided he liked the ones at Dick's better.  But Jacob got some clothes, Carter got some pants, and I got a new pair of very cheap Nike sneakers!  We grabbed lunch at Andersons and then stopped at my parents on the way out of town.  We just visited for a bit on what ended up being a very rainy day despite the forecast only calling for a couple showers.  We headed home in the late afternoon and settled in for another week of homework, sleep, and morning battles.

Fortunately, we had another nice "little thing" to break up the week a bit.  Carter had his first orchestra concert!  I wasn't sure what to expect, especially listening to him practice in the days prior, but in the end, it was amazing!  A lot of what he played made a lot more sense in the context of the full orchestra, and he really seemed to do well.  He was noted in the program as the "Section Leader", which I assume is sort of like first chair?  It's a little different than sports where there's an element of individual performance and this was more of an ensemble, but it was so neat to see him up there and doing his thing.

In the first video, Carter's favorite note is around the 40 second mark.  He loves doing that one!

This was a longer song and I really thought it was impressive.

I wasn't sure how this music thing would go, but he really does seem to like it, enough that I think we need to keep his viola over the summer and get in some lessons. 

At the end!

His first soccer practice was actually the night of the concert (luckily his buddy Ben was in band so he missed too), and Thursday's ended up getting canceled, so soccer is on hold until next week, I guess.  But he's excited for that too.  

Jacob's team has a local tournament this Saturday so he and Craig will probably go spectate while I stay home and work on the yard a bit while the weather is cooperative.  He's starting to shoot the ball a bit now since he's jumping more in therapy, so we'll see what next week's follow-up looks like and whether or not he gets cleared.  Sunday is Mother's Day and it looks like we'll do a Buffalo swing to both moms.  And from there on out we will be in St. Louis mode--preparing for the trip and then leaving Thursday after school.  I'm getting nervous about it--weather, packing, the long drive, managing missed school--but if it works out the upside could be awesome.  Mentally I just do not want to miss out on this opportunity, so of course my anxiety is rearing up a bit just thinking about it.  It's definitely going to be an interesting week...interspersed with as many little things as possible to keep me sane, no doubt.

About Last Week...

Last week.  Ugh.

Last week took me back in time nearly 10 years.  To a time where I feared for Jacob's future, worried we'd need to send him for inpatient treatment, and wondered how the heck we were going to survive parenthood.  Except this time around those feelings were happening with the testosterone-fueled teenager I once feared having, knowing I would be smaller, weaker, and incapable of forcing him to do anything.  That future is now, and it sucks.

It's ironic, mind you, because a couple Fridays ago I drove past the new behavioral health building that went up down the street from the office we used to go to for Jacob's therapy a number of years ago.  They started building it just as we changed to the office we went to throughout the pandemic for both kids, and I thought about how thankful I was when that was built that it would be there if we needed it for more intense treatment.  As I drove by, I thought in that moment, "Well, I guess it was good we never needed it."  Karma, I guess, because there were moments over the past week that I was sure we were going to.

The short story of all of this is that Jacob's school is making him crazy and his frustration from his broken leg is probably making things worse.  He's constantly behind on homework, which causes him to stay up late (because he is incapable of pushing through and getting it done without endless breaks in the afternoon and evening), so he doesn't get enough sleep and is dead tired in the morning.  Coupled with his hatred of school right now, he was essentially refusing to get out of bed.  By the time he did, he was late for school, which only made the frustration worse because he couldn't eat a proper breakfast, which only made him more tired and cranky.  It got so bad that he missed almost two full days last week, so we took him in for bloodwork to see if there was more to it, and it turns out he's basically anemic.  So maybe there was some medical cause to the debacle--fair enough--but we can't just let him stay home from school for the next month, which he has asked for.  He refuses to just push through and make it work.  The new school option that I mentioned previously has indeed turned into a massive distraction/preferred next step, but that's complicated, too.  

So I guess that's not such a short story--but that's the shortest version I can tell.  As for the longer version...

The refusal to get out of bed has been absolutely exhausting and rivals the stuff we dealt with when he was five.  He is just impossible, combative, and irrational.  I understand he's tired, I understand he's frustrated, I understand that the obnoxious, immature behavior of his classmates is really wearing on him after a long year.  But legally we can't keep him home from school.  We can't just let him sleep like he says we should.  He doesn't listen when we tell him to do his work earlier in the day, and then insists he can't go to bed on time because he needs to do his work and his leg/ankle stretches.  There simply aren't enough hours in the day for him to fit it all in within the limits of his brain's endurance.  Then if he has trouble sleeping on top of it all, he's not telling us until it's far too late and he's even more tired in the morning.  It's this awful, vicious cycle and it is completely exhausting.  I need a nap by the time I get to work.  It's not like when he was little and we could carry him (probably getting punched in the process) to wherever we needed him to go.  He's bigger than me, at least as strong, and I am powerless to get him out of bed.  I try to remind him it just takes a few seconds of summoned strength to push through and stand up, but apparently that's too much.  Last Wednesday he went to school (late) only to go right to the nurse and have Craig pick him up.  Then Thursday he refused to get up and stayed home all day.  He does do work and catch up on sleep when he's home, which helps for a while, but then it makes the homework problem worse, which means we're stuck in the same mess perpetually.

As I mentioned, with how tired he's been, it made sense to take him in and get some bloodwork done to rule some things out.  Turns out his iron is quite low.  In fact, everything related to his iron was low (or in the case of one thing, abnormally high).  His ferritin is a 7, which is crazy low.  But it's the same exact thing that Carter and I have both had issues with, so I really think this is genetic.  My mom has perpetually low iron as well.  Carter's low ferritin popped up when we did testing around the time of his sleep study and subsequent tonsillectomy around five years ago.  He takes a kid vitamin with iron now and seems fine.  My hemoglobin was always borderline when giving blood so I started supplementing daily, and since then mine has been better, so I think a supplement will help Jacob too.  His vitamin D was also low, and I already take that too, so I started him on the same supplements the next day.  Hopefully it works quickly because we need whatever help we can get.  So, like everything else in his life, I guess some of this literally is my fault (darn you, genes)...along with most other things plaguing him.  Sigh.

He has a month of school left.  That's not a lot to ask.  But it apparently sounds overwhelming to him.  Making things more complicated is that the thing that needed to happen to make this different school a possibility happened--his favorite coach got hired as the varsity coach for a city charter school that happens to be in our town and therefore has a loophole for him to not have to sit for a year in order to play basketball there.  But he's way down on the list for the lottery so a number of things will have to happen for him to be able to go there.  The academics are better and the college acceptance rate is significantly higher than where he is now.  He'd be in a very small minority of white students (like 10%), which he's fine with (and so are we) but it could be harder than he realizes to fit in.  Most of the kids come from the city, which concerns me a bit, though maybe not for the reason you'd think.  It just seems a lot easier to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time in the city--so many underage kids have been shot already this year--so I feel like it would be a bit more complicated to nurture friendships there and make sure his judgment is good when picking people and places to hang out.  It's not so much the kids themselves--they are clearly doing their part to go to a good school and do the right thing based on the school's academic stats--but you just don't know the family culture they grew up in, who they associate with, and whether they might frequent or live in parts of town where crime is higher.  And Jacob could stick out like a sore thumb in certain situations, so I feel like we just need to be more vigilant with vetting those relationships if he goes there.  But just getting him in sounds like it will be a challenge.  And if he doesn't get in I have no idea what we'll do because staying at his current school is looking less and less possible if we want to keep him mentally healthy.

When Jacob was five, I worried about what those intense tantrums would look like as he aged.  Would he be punching holes in every wall?  Would he be physically attacking us?  Luckily we're not quite at that point, but we're not that far off either--let's say I'm happy he has a good phone case.  But it's at the point where I worry for his future, much like I did back then, but now we're at an age where if he decided he wanted to hurt himself, he is capable of doing that in a number of ways and would have plenty of time alone to do it.  Even if we manage to get him through this stage, what happens when he goes to college, or even prep school like he wants to in a couple years?  How can I even begin to protect him then?  Hence my urgency right now.  The truth is, life isn't easy--it's actually pretty endlessly frustrating if you let it get to you that way--and I don't think he's prepared to manage that, despite our best efforts.  How do you tell your kid that life really is a series of hard things (interspersed with some truly great stuff) without completely crushing their spirit?  I think that's where I'm a little stuck right now.  He's never been particularly tolerant of unpleasant things, but life is going to demand that more and more.  I just don't know what else to do to help him through it when he doesn't want to hear from us, won't participate with a therapist, and generally can't be reasoned with.

This past weekend actually made me realize a couple things more clearly.  We had a mostly-nice weekend in Buffalo (more on that soon), and he was pretty normal the whole weekend.  He talked a lot about the new school, which he needs to chill out on until we make any progress there, but for the most part he was pleasant and all of the erratic, frustrating behavior from the week seemed to fade away.  But Sunday night right around bedtime it ramped up again.  Despite making good progress on homework, he still had makeup work to do.  He stayed up later than would be ideal to do his leg stretches, then started complaining about needing to get his work done and wanting to stay up to do it...which of course would put us right back in the "not enough sleep" scenario.  We encouraged him to take some melatonin, but in the process he said a bunch of worrying things, to the point Craig went down and stayed in his room until he fell asleep.  It was just sort of jarring how quickly he reverted to the inconsolable, irrational, endlessly frustrating kid we dealt with all last week, despite being generally pleasant most of the weekend.  It was about that moment that I realized that this was probably anxiety, and this difficult behavior is probably his version of an anxiety attack.  He says it's not, but I don't think he realizes quite how intense it is.  It's like his brain flips and he starts spiraling, and from then on he's impossible to manage.  Once the immediate stressor subsides for a bit (like over the weekend or even during the day when he did stay home from school), he emerges from that and is able to act normally again until the "threat" reappears.  I previously sort of felt like it was a bit of an act (or at least an embellishment) to help us see his anguish and convince us to keep him home or whatever, but now I think it may be a legitimate, involuntary brain response fueling it all.  What we do about that, I'm not sure.  Every time we bring up therapy he says it will only take time away from him getting his work done and he won't participate anyway.  The school work won't be an issue a month from now, mind you, but we need to get through this month.  I don't know if a therapist would be enough, or if he needs medication to help bring him down a notch, but that's a scary prospect.  I don't know who would even qualify him for that and prescribe it, or if we could even get it done soon enough.  Maybe CBD is worth a try?  I'd rather he figure out some coping techniques instead, but right now it's just overwhelming when he gets going.

While we were in Buffalo we stopped in to see my parents.  My dad has always been a worrier, but lately so much of his existence and perspective seems to be overwhelmed by the state of the world, to the point he's hard to talk to without the conversation veering to whatever is bugging him.  He focuses so much on politics and a frustrating news cycle, plus his health problems, and doesn't have enough other good stuff to offset it.  He loves his time with his extended family, and they do go to casino shows and things like that--not to mention their travel a few times a year--but most of his day-to-day is very much centered around the bad stuff with few distractions.  I think Jacob is much in the same boat, honestly, only his is a frustrating school experience, lots of homework, and his current physical limitations.  It's overwhelming him to the point that the good stuff can't break through and balance it out.  And sometimes he's so focused on his goals and preferences that I think he dismisses positive things as not a good use of his time, such as his unwillingness to do touristy things on our trips.  He may not think that stuff is fun or interesting, but sometimes I feel like just being open to experiencing the world is important for realizing there's more to life than just the small circle we exist in every day.  I think he needs to be more open to finding the joy in those things than he is now.  Sometimes it's just enough to take the edge off.  It won't solve the problems but it might balance things out a bit.

The start of the week has been a little better.  Not entirely, but he's gone to school and stayed there.  He's still worried that his perpetual late arrivals will reflect negatively on his chances to get into the new school, but it's only making a small dent in the morning mess.  He should have some internal support to encourage him getting into the new school, but apparently the admissions person is "by the book" so we're working through some scenarios that might make it easier--from our concerns with the quality of the education at his current school and how he'd likely transition into Regents-track 9th grade, to whether his shorter school year could enable him to enroll at the end of the year and bypass the lottery entirely.  Making these big decisions (again) is hard--especially when there's a financial component and the mental health element is delicate currently.  I had my concerns with the last transition, but it had to happen, and I feel similarly about this one.  We're running out of options, though.  I still find the balance between attending to your child's needs and going into helicopter/lawnmower parent territory very challenging.  Is he learning enough resilience?  Are we encouraging him to work through conflict and challenges?  But what if it is better for him in the long run?  It's so hard.

So, needless to say, it's been a roller coaster (and not the good kind) lately.  I'm happy to say that the phase of tearing up at my desk three times in a day has passed for now (that lasted months 10 years ago), but we still have a lot of struggles and work ahead.  One day, one wakeup, one homework session at a time.  Hopefully he will be more open to our help and we'll build up an even better kid in the long run.

About Last Weekend...

It's been a long freaking week or so.  I'll get to most of that in another post, but first...

The end of last week was actually pretty fun.  Carter has Friday off, and Thursday night was the Spring Fling at Carter's school.  He said he wanted to go, and then that afternoon he seemed less sure--he didn't know if his friends were going--but we had already paid so off we went.  It turned out to be fun.  There was a word scramble scavenger hunt and then we found a bunch of games in the gym.  His best school buddy Ben was there, and they ended up playing cornhole and Kan-Jam with a bunch of other kids, and then trying out the other games, like a LED-lit floor version of tic-tac-toe, this lily pad game...

You had to stomp on the lever to fling the bean bag to the lily pad.

...and this ring toss, which Carter rocked--he got all of them on!

He also did Plinko and got a winning 10 on his first disc!

He skipped giant Connect Four and a frog pond because he and Ben decided they wanted to go outside for a bit.  It was cool outside but luckily not cold, so Ben's dad and I chatted while they played with some other kids.  We'll be seeing more of them soon because soccer starts next week and Ben is on Carter's team again for the third time in four years (minus a COVID year).  They're pretty excited--I'm mostly just happy because they don't have the same coach Carter had last year!

I was agonizing about what we were going to do the next day.  I took off because I didn't want to work from home and have him on screens all day.  I thought about going to Buffalo and doing the history museum or the aquarium there, because he'd already done a bunch of his favorite things in Rochester recently, but that felt like a lot for a day.  I squeezed in a workout in the morning and then pushed Carter a bit to help me make a decision.  He wanted to eat at Arby's so we knew we had to start there.  It wasn't a super nice day, but it was just warm enough and wasn't going to rain until later.  After a while I gave up on big plans and thought about other playgrounds that had been on my list.  I realized there were at least two to the west of us that had been on my list--one was the Hamlin rec playground and the other was Northampton Park, which has a natural playground.  Hamlin had said "temporarily closed" on Google for over a year, so we hadn't attempted it, but when I found a picture of kids on the playground at a recent Easter egg hunt, I decided it was worth a shot.  I found a newer playground in the town of Sweden nearby, and then we'd move on to Northampton Park.  

Arby's ended up being fun because some Mad Libs came in his Kids' Meal and we giggled a lot as we did them while we ate.  Then we were on to the playgrounds!

Hamlin's looked really impressive--it was an old wooden one, likely from the late 80s.  It was still in relatively good shape.  There were a couple elements that were broken, and a couple round benches that once had giant trees in the middle and now just looked like mud pits (I'd have thought they were GaGa Ball pits but they also had one of those), but for the most part it was still pretty great.

Huge!

It was a bit like the one we did last fall, where the wooden structure was a giant, weaving maze of steps and platforms and hiding spots interspersed with tire accents and a couple slides.   

There were some different elements, like this chain climb...

...and these shaky, shifting suspended stairs.

Carter liked the rubbery jumping mat bridge.

We had a lot of fun checking things out and racing through different sections.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, using a small tire as a replacement for a regular swing is really uncomfortable!  After we tried everything, it was on to the next one...Sweden!

This playground was buried deep in the town park and was adjacent to a spray park.  It's a newer build with some accessible things like a wheelchair-friendly spinner and long ramps.

There were also a few cool instruments like these chimes...

And this colorful xylophone.

Carter loved the spinner, the challenge of crawling up the roller slide, and the big slides, too.  We didn't stay there too long because it wasn't that different than most that we've done, and I was starting to get nervous about the weather.  The wind was picking up a little and the rain was coming, so we moved on.

Northampton Park had a huge natural playground with tons of logs and other natural structures.  It's much like the one near Highland Park and the Lilac Festival, or the temporary one we saw at the zoo a few years ago.  This one was huge.  We liked the Indiana Jones bridge!

The playground was huge! 

This was the view from a tiny lookout tower.

There was a bench swing, so we tried it out and Carter asked me to take a selfie.  Love this kid.

There were a few different obstacles.  This one was crazy--there was one where they were all the same height (much like Carter has pushed himself to do fast at the Highland Park one), but this one with varying heights was a different kind of challenge!

This one wasn't as crazy as the bridge, but it definitely pushed us!

Somehow we made it out mostly unscathed.  I had a little bit of a sore hip from going through a tunnel and sliding on to my side--I think the mulch and pine needles inside made it like walking on marbles or something--but I'll take that over broken bones any day, as these playgrounds always bring out a different level of fear.  But they're even fun for adults and I like ones that keep me active too!  We had a really fun time.

I had the idea to grab Slurpees on the way home since I wanted Carter to try the vanilla one I liked so much the previous week.  We stopped at the closest 7-Eleven but they only had three flavors (how dare they?!) so we headed back out in the direction we came from to go to the giant Speedway we had passed earlier.  Sure enough, they had it...and we very much enjoyed our afternoon snack!

The weekend was pretty uneventful after that because the weather was terrible.  It was cold and rainy.  I did make progress on a couple household things, including doing an overhaul of Carter's clothes.  He's grown like a weed over the past year or so, so I dragged up the remaining medium clothes, sorted through them and discovered that most of Jacob's stuff won't work because it was team/lacrosse/year-specific.  I pulled a few things and set the rest up for donation at this point.  It's not really worth keeping them around if they don't work for hand-me-downs for us, let anyone else, you know?  But I pulled in what would work, re-did his summer PJs with new t-shirts and shorts he likely wouldn't wear in public, set up a few things to be handy for when he grows a little bit more, moved his closet shelving down a notch so his shirts have more room, and pretty much have him ready to go for the summer.  That felt good.  I'm still struggling to get back to Carter's toys and his room, and I know Jacob has too-small clothes in his room that need to be packed away.  It all feels like a lot right now but it needs to get done at some point.

Carter and I went to the Knighthawks game on Saturday, which ended up being a tough (but meaningless) loss.  He seems to be enjoying lacrosse right now, which is ironic since it was right around this age when Jacob started shunning it.  The playoffs start this weekend in Buffalo, and while it kills me inside a little, having them lose would be much easier for everyone right now.  Not only would ongoing playoffs jeopardize the whole St. Louis trip plan, but it would also stress out Craig and cost the team a ton because he'd need to book local hotel rooms for the weekend that the PGA Championship is in town, which is nearly impossible and/or prohibitively expensive.  We also really need him home right now because of some things Jacob is going through, and trust me when I say that it would bring down Jacob's aggravation level considerably if Craig's job wasn't butting into things.  The odds of them winning against Buffalo are probably slim, but of course that's usually when some miracle occurs, when it's least convenient.  It reminds me of 2018, when the Knighthawks were just so-so all season but made it into the playoffs and proceeded to knock off their first two opponents (including the top seed).  Against all odds, they made it into the championship series, which meant Craig had to miss Jacob's first lacrosse tournament weekend.  I'm just waiting for that to happen again,only this time I'd have to manage a trip to St. Louis instead of Syracuse.

As I said, it's been a long week for reasons I won't get into in this post, but we do have some big stuff coming up.  Buffalo this weekend--technically for the playoff game but more for a change of scenery-- Carter's first orchestra concert Tuesday, and his soccer starts next week as well.  He'll miss the first practice because of his concert but will make the second one Thursday.  Games don't start for another couple weeks, which is probably good because we're just emerging from the worst weather pattern ever.  That cold and rain that arrived Friday night stuck around for almost a week!  It didn't clear until later Thursday.  It's extra hard this time of year when you'd like to be out enjoying the tulips and the flowering trees and already had a taste of good weather.  I had a mental block about wearing sweaters and boots in May, but the weather wasn't allowing for much else.  The yard is a mess because it had a lot of growing time since it was decent enough to get out there and clean it up.  Everyone just seemed to be dragging mood-wise because it just wouldn't let up.

 

Work has at least slowed down a bit.  I can actually think and get through my to do list for a change.  It won't last but I'm appreciating it while it lasts, especially since my attention has been divided this week.  Jacob has a month left of school and Carter is getting into the stretch run as well.  I can't believe we're already to this point.  Next weekend is the one-year anniversary of Carter's and my Kennywood trip which is both mind-blowing and sort of sobering.  It was such a gorgeous weekend and we had such a blast, but I can't believe a year has passed already.  He's SO ready for our Darien Lake season to start, and pretty much wants to do every park we can this summer.  I'm trying to manage his expectations, but it's not easy...Cedar Point and Waldameer in Erie are on his list, and he wants to do Kennywood again.  There's an off-chance we could do Hersheypark, and I have Canada's Wonderland (a youth group favorite I haven't been to since I was a teenager) on my list if we make it up toward Toronto.  We'll see.  And then I have Jacob angling to go back to Disney, just for a few days and just to hang at the resort.  Oy.  

Stay tuned for the post about what's made this week so tough.  I need to work through that one for my own sanity.  Let's just say it's been a throwback to almost 10 years ago, and I'm not sure which one is worse.