Life Lately

Just meandering through the last bit of the school year now.  Jacob has been fully in summer mode for a while, mind you, and Carter will follow starting Wednesday afternoon...lucky ducks.  Man, what I wouldn't give for an old school summer vacation!  At least Juneteenth gives me one day!

Baseball is in full swing now.  It's not going exactly as we'd hoped, as the team has too many players due to absorbing a team without enough players, so it's sort of like modified because Carter's only getting a couple at-bats per game.  He is starting, at least, but he usually only plays half the game in the field before the lineup switch.  He's making good contact with the ball, but just got a new bat to hopefully get a little more pop.  He did get one that rolled to the fence during practice last week, so the power is there.  His first game after was rained out (an inning and a half in, ugh), but he did get two nice hits (and player of the game honors) the next game.  I caught this picture last week and I can't get over how big he looks.  He's so tall and so much more solid.  

It's shocking when you compare to this picture from last year at this time, at the same field.  That's him next to Jacob, and while the distance may enhance the difference a bit, it's pretty clear that the height has changed and you can tell he just looks bigger and broader.  Some of that is puberty, but so much is getting his health under control.

We're coming up on the one-year anniversary of his ulcerative colitis diagnosis, and he's had a tremendously great 9+ months since we got it under control.  From what I can tell, that can change at any moment, so I'm grateful for how far he's come and how uneventful this time has been.  I have vowed to myself to reach out to the school nurse start the process for a 504 plan, just in case we're not as lucky next year.  Truth be told, he does miss a lot of school because he catches every darn cold virus that comes through, so it's probably not a bad idea to see if we can get accommodations for him being immune-compromised, on top of any GI-related symptoms or treatments we need to cover.

Speaking of baseball, last week we went to the Red Wings game because Craig was being honored pregame as the winner of a sports media excellence award from the Rochester Press Radio Club.  It's a pretty cool honor, and once upon a time would have been awarded at a fancy dinner with hundreds of other people and some sports celebrity guest speaker.  But I think COVID changed that, so apparently it's a night at the ballgame instead!  I probably should have run around to the other side, for the presentation, but Craig's parents were with us and I didn't want to leave them or run them ragged!

Getting the award

Picture time with the mascots, owner, and others

They also gave awards to two local Olympians (one who was there, one whose family accepted the award) as well as the woman that has run our town's Little League organization for decades.  We got a buffet picnic dinner and free tickets.  It was nice to have his parents there, and my cousin and her husband were coincidentally there, and I also got to see our friend and former co-worker who got me connected at my current job, who is apparently now part of the Press Radio Club herself!  

It was a nice night--the clouds were definitely rolling in, but you can see from the building reflection that the sunset was nice somewhere behind us!

Actually got the boys to smile for me!

That cloud rolling in was holding a heck of a thunderstorm.  We headed out just in time, getting to the cars as the raindrops started.  The drive home was rather un-fun, but at least we were dry!

Craig's parents stayed until the rain passed, so we got a few pictures.

This is from the program they handed out.

On Wednesday, we sent Carter off to school and the rest of us hopped in the car to drive to Elmira to get the lay of the land a bit at Jacob's new school.  We visited a gym in town where he could train and found a gluten-free breakfast place.  We went to the school and met with the guidance counselor to talk through a few class and curriculum things, then met the varsity basketball coach (who is not his coach) and the athletic director.  We got another brief tour of the dorms, and Jacob put up some shots in the gym.

It was set up for exams.  There's a second tier of seating above the bleachers.

One of his first shots got stuck, and of course that would happen when he only had one ball!  He jumped up a bunch of times to try to dislodge it, but when it wedged higher, he eventually used his shoe.

This is his dorm from outside.  We were standing in front of the school, so he'll have a quick commute.

Last week ended up so busy that I was barely able to take my daily walks.  Thursday was Carter's last chorus concert.  He's decided to not participate in chorus next year, though viola survives for another year, at least.  It's a little bittersweet, especially because these concerts are typically pretty good, courtesy of including the jazz band and show choir performances, which are both audition-based groups.  

Here's one song from Wicked.  He's in the middle, second row from the top, next to a taller black kid in a gray shirt:

And another song that's pretty instantly recognizable (sorry for the seasick camerawork--this was on my real camera, and I didn't really set myself up to have supported arms or good thumb placement for the buttons, so I was adjusting a lot and zooming in always makes movement more obvious):

Proud of him for getting through four years of chorus when it would have been easy enough for it to be uncool.  Luckily he had a couple friends that stayed in over the years, which probably helped.  But I think it will be a good opportunity for him to be able to take other electives down the road, hopefully something he will enjoy more.  And if there was a bargaining chip to keep him playing viola, it was probably letting him discontinue this!

Craig and Jacob left on last Friday for his first opportunity to play with (part of) his school basketball team.  They were in Allentown, PA for the weekend.  Unfortunately, Jacob accidentally got glass embedded in his foot the day before they left.  He broke a glass door panel in our hand-me-down coffee table in the basement a couple weeks ago.  We cleaned it up that night, but when he went to move the table Thursday to dribble his basketball (same thing that caused the break), there was glass hiding underneath.  He initially got checked and had a piece taken out, but still felt like there was more, so he went to another place, which didn't find anything else.  That made for a late night before the trip, and then he had to figure out how to play with it.  He didn't score a lot, but I think it was a good experience as a whole.  We're just hoping he can get a bit more consistent.  It was still bothering him this week, so he went to one of his usual ortho doctors, who found another piece stuck in there that he'll have to have surgically removed.  It will be minor and the recovery should be quick, but we'll see how that will impact the trips we have coming up (Allentown again and Atlanta).  

They stopped at a baseball game in Reading, PA on their way back, which meant another late night Sunday--especially because there were CRAZY storms coming through--but they did get me a cool shirt perfect for Oktoberfest time, or just embracing my German heritage.  

Handsome guys!

We also battled the same storm a bit.  Carter and I were at his baseball game Sunday morning, which was a little cooler than I'd like for June and had a couple drizzles, but the weather improved a bit by the end.  Then we headed to Pittsford to get his phone fixed again--the screen was replaced the previous week but some connection was loose after that because his speaker was funky.  While we were waiting, we got some lunch across the parking lot--his first time at The Cheesecake Factory!  We stopped at Trader Joe's after and rushed through in about five minutes because the approaching storm cloud clearly meant business!  We got hit with the first few big raindrops before spending 20 minutes in the car simply waiting for it to let up enough to drive.  At least we had good snacks to keep us occupied!  But there was some notable flooding before we got on the highway.  I hated to think of Craig having to drive through that after a very long day.

Otherwise, the yard is getting up and running for the year.  Here's a quick rundown of some of the fun so far.  After a crazy rain a couple weeks ago, I noticed some little objects in our way back in piles of mown grass which I thought might be animal poop...but no, tiny snails!  Zoom in to see the antennae!

I was a little bummed I didn't get any showstopping columbines this year, but these were still super pretty!

I am mildly obsessed with the gazanias I bought for some of my planters.

There's still another orange/red one I haven't gotten a picture of.  They're so stunning!

Speaking of stunning, our unchecked rhododendrons continue to dazzle.  I laugh at some of my first pictures after we moved here.  They've probably tripled in size.  Oops...happy accident!

For reference....a picture I took in 2010, our first spring here.  The window you see in this picture is completely covered now, probably not even halfway up the purple one in the pic above.  It's crazy, right?

Fungus season is officially starting, as I noticed a lot of dead tree leaves after a windy day the other day, and the first sections of my bloody cranesbill are about at the point where I need to start pulling them so they can start over, rather than looking leggy and brown.  My sad, almost dead azalea has come back nicely with some growth, but I'm keeping an eye on some white spots.  And finally, the pool got warm enough to swim in last weekend before a cool stretch, but it's been stuck on green for a bit.  But my swim (with the purpose of cleaning it) was shockingly nice.  

So, another big weekend (and milestone!) is coming up and then we're fully on to summer...  

What Would Have Been (and Will Be)

Sorry I've been a little extra quiet lately.  I feel like it's a combination of life, the end of the school year, a month of being extra dedicated to my nightly walks, and whatever this supposedly non-ADHD executive dysfunction is doing to my brain that makes me hesitant to start projects.  I feel like I need to do a lot of brainless decompressing lately, and by the time I do that, it's pretty much bedtime.  And it's honestly been hard to write during my lunches like I used to, too, for the same reasons.  

June is upon us, and Jacob is now done with school for the year.  Bishop Kearney always gets out early because they don't do Regents, so I now have at least one in-house companion on my work from home days for the rest of the summer.  Once they're both done, I will enjoy sleeping a little later, not packing lunches, and not rushing out the door, but this comes with its own set of annoyances, for sure.  Hard to believe this may be the last one of these pictures I take of Jacob, as he will likely have to take his own next year.  End of an era, regardless.

Pardon the porch ceiling.  I think I finally have a solution--working on it!

Speaking of which, I have a LOT of feelings about Jacob's school situation.  For starters, it's been a very strange spring.  All of the kids his same age that I've watched grow up over the years (most through social media, but some school friends) have been doing all of their lasts--prom, last sports things, signing day and college announcements, and finally graduation.  Jacob's school teammates graduated last weekend, and one by one, other friends' kids are finishing up.  It's just hard to know that it would have been us without him reclassifying, and not only aren't we getting those things now, we likely won't exactly have a front-row view if those things happen in the future since he'll be living a couple hours away.  Obviously we will be there in some form, but we'll miss the typical build-up and everything will involve four hours of driving if we want to see it all in person.  Not only that, but more than likely we've got two years of this school, so it probably won't happen next year, either.  Yeah, it would be sort of a post-grad year, but essentially he'll be in 11th grade again next year for bookkeeping purposes.  Don't get me started.  All of this should get him some college attention, so hopefully it's all for good reason, but I am struggling with it.

In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm very by-the-book on things.  I like completeness, and the fact that Jacob has changed schools so many times makes me absolutely crazy.  I mean, you're talking to a girl who was a foreign language major for three semesters of college and switched partially because she didn't want to miss a semester on campus to study abroad.  I know that's ridiculous, because clearly it would have been the experience of a lifetime in return, but it's sort of a FOMO thing that spawns from feeling left out or on the fringes for most of my life.  What if everyone changes without me?!  But essentially that's the same brain that needs to process all of Jacob's detours, and it's....a lot.  I guess as long as it doesn't phase HIM, that's fine, but I do worry about the effect it's had on his ability to make and maintain friendships.  He's very much a grass-is-greener, on-to-the-next sort of kid, and there probably aren't many friendships he's maintained.  He generally makes friends fine where he's at, although to some degree I feel like the competition he's so accustomed to in sports probably affects that too, in some way.  I'm not sure what that will mean for his future relationships, but sometimes just keeping your kid sane has to take priority, and unfortunately in this case, that's meant a lot of shifts.  And now that will likely leave him two years behind his peers in getting out into the real world, although we're hoping he'll be able to take enough college classes while he's there that he can cut a little time off of actual college.  But the left behind feeling is real, even in my position, which I know--that's my problem, not his.

I keep telling myself that in an alternate reality we'd be sending him off to college in the fall anyway, so this really isn't a big deal.  But it sort of is, as this is a different sort of setup than being one of hundreds or thousands of freshmen doing the same thing for the first time.  Instead, he'll be one of maybe a dozen kids tackling the prep school world, and at a new prep school at that, so it's not entirely clear how the support system will hold up.  I still have lots of worries about him and his environment, with very little room for error.  Will he be able to motivate himself to do his school work?  Will he be responsible enough to do his laundry regularly and clean his room so he's not the stinky kid?  Will the food situation be okay?  I mean, he's pretty particular about how I prepare his food, let alone some chef who is simultaneously preparing multiple foods in the same kitchen.  Will the basketball situation turn out okay?  What if it all just doesn't work?  There's a fine line between pushing through and taking a serious psychological risk, and I just don't know how to know the difference.  I also don't know what the alternative is, even though I've said over and over that we need to have a plan B in mind.  The fall is going to be pretty overwhelming, clearly.  I have a million mom-of-a-big-kid fears cropping up, and some days I'm not sure I'm built for this stage.  Also, driving is coming and I am terrified.  

But anyway, it's been somewhat weird and bittersweet watching his peers go through all of the senior year things and not be experiencing those things ourselves, and possibly never in the way we expected.  I can only hold out hope for Carter, I guess.  But for someone like me who is endlessly sentimental and gets all into nostalgia (two weeks ago was the 30th anniversary of my prom!), it's hard for me to not see him doing things a bit more traditionally and making the same kinds of memories I did.  Again, he will likely be fine with it, but when you're young, you don't know what you don't know, and maybe someday he'll have kids and wish he'd done some of these things.  

So, in the meantime, we start his summer break and need to mine the college packing lists...without it being for college.  We're probably going to visit the school again this week (still not sure if I'm going or not) to get a better lay of the land and hopefully work out a couple things, but it's going to be an interesting couple months.

Carter still has 2-1/2 more weeks of school, so I guess we'll ease into full summer mode for now.  At least he went to Seabreeze one day this week.  He also had a couple sick days at home early in the week from what appears to be the mildest case of COVID ever--the line on multiple tests was so faint.  Enough to make Jacob crazy, of course, but very faint.  We're not sure if maybe he had it when we were in Cincinnati and we only caught the tail-end of whatever his immune-compromised body was holding on to, or if this was additional to that cold.  He never had a fever or fatigue in either case, but Jacob insisted we test him when he got a little cough last Saturday.  A week later and we're still not sure, because today's test had a super faint control line, so even if there was a faint positive test line, we'd probably never have seen it.  But I'd have to think he's clear now, as he doesn't even have symptoms.  So that was fun, as is Jacob is obsessively testing himself.  Ugh.  Anyway, Carter has one full week (including a concert), one four-day week (Juneteenth), and a 2-1/2 day week before he's free.

On the sports front, baseball is starting back up and Jacob is in the midst of a couple week break from travel.  He'll be going to Allentown a couple times this month to play with his new school team, before potentially going to Atlanta in July.  He's not sure he wants to make that trip for a few reasons, but we shall see.  I think Carter and I might go on the second Allentown one, in hopes of making it to Hersheypark.  But we also have Carter's games, so we'll have to see what he's willing to give up for a good amusement park!  It seems Carter will play more with this team, but they also have too many kids because some kids are playing up and then they absorbed a few kids from another team that couldn't get enough, so even though it seems like he'll be a starter, he still may not get more than a couple at-bats most games.  Is that worth staying for?  Maybe.  We'll see what he chooses to do.

So, the end of the school year will be here before we know it, and we have a few things to keep us occupied in the meantime.  Hopefully I will have more to write about soon...

Cincinnati, Part 2

With our family's hippo affection over the past nine months or so--since Carter's blue hippo from Aldi joined the household during the worst of his ulcerative colitis flare--it was exciting to have the chance to go to a zoo with very famous hippos.  Fiona was born prematurely back in 2017.  It took a lot of effort to care for her, but she became the smallest hippo ever to survive, and became quite famous on social media in the process.  There was also a lot of excitement when her half-brother, Fritz, was born a few years later.  We were excited to see them in person!  While I tried to steer us away from the store, they did have this adorable stuffed Fiona.  We have enough hippos at home already, but at the end of the day we did get a cute magnet!

I didn't really look at the map closely before we started walking, so we inadvertently took the long way around before finally getting our hippo time.  But they had a ton of other animals!  There were kangaroos in an open habitat that you could walk through without any barriers.  They mostly just ignored us, but it was a little intimidating nonetheless when one was staring us down.

These tiny penguins were so cute!

We did see real tortoises, but I liked this picture better!

There was a giant sea eagle that was probably about the size of a vulture or condor, and look how big the nests are!

There was a small but historic reptile house--the oldest zoo building in the country.  This was the view looking up at the classic old building.

They also had lots of monkeys, including these guys.  Look at that tail!

They had gorillas, and while they were a bit tough to see, this one in its little cave was sort of cute.

They had a bunch of nocturnal animals that unfortunately didn't photograph well, and we also saw a tiger and an elegant snow leopard.  This owl was so cool with his wings all spread out.  Maybe a cooling technique on a hot day?  Very intense look, though!

They had a large insect building, and while insects absolutely creep me out, it's always interesting to see what they have.  Of course there were creepy bugs, giant tarantulas, and all the nightmarish things that don't look like bugs at first glance.  Take this (still pretty) orchid mantis:

They had a giant collection of leaf-cutter ants.  There were two or three main displays and then tubes connecting them that ran throughout the building.  There had to be billions of ants, and you could absolutely see them at work!
 

More nightmare fuel, but look at that coloring!

They had a small butterfly area, and I tried like heck to get a shot of one that looked so pretty in the light.  This is the best I could get, one less interesting one with a blurry shot of the one I wanted.

This one was pretty on the flower, though.

Back outside, monkeys always make climbing look so effortless.

Quite the silhouette from that same guy, just hanging out!

They had a very large elephant habitat.  Hard to see, but this one is reaching up to grab a snack.

They also had an inside area, and I always love watching elephants use their trunks.  It's amazing.

I think I've really only seen manatees at Disney, but it was neat to see them here because they felt more interactive down in the tank than the ones we'd mostly only seen eating at the surface.

I was surprised to see this one sort of resting on its tail!

Always love a good fish shot.

This monkey was sitting so nicely on its branch.

The small-clawed Asian otters and orangutans didn't really cooperate for good pictures, but I did get some interesting footage of a sea otter using his toy like a shell, banging it on the rock wall.

Look at this gorgeous bird!

I've seen ones similar to this before, I think, but look at those feathers on its head!

The colors on this one were stunning.

We worked our way through land after land, stopped for a quick lunch somewhere after the elephants, and kept pressing on.  Carter was starting to lose patience because of the heat and sore feet, so we had to get to the hippos...stat!  My only complaint about this zoo is that the path was a bit funky to follow.  I felt like there was a lot of backtracking and random forks along the path that made it difficult to walk through as efficiently as possible.  But the selection of animals was top-notch and the exhibits made for pretty decent viewing most of the time.

We finally made it through Africa to the hippos!  For giant animals they were pretty active.  Their sheer size is impressive.  This picture does not do it justice, but they are imposing!

I don't know who was who, but look at those faces! 

This gives a bit better of a size comparison when you consider how far back that one hippo is.

They were pretty interactive and curious, and we probably would have stayed longer had it not been super crowded and getting close to our departure time.  But it was really neat to see them in person!

We caught a glimpse of the giraffes, though nothing will top my Animal Adventure up-close view from last year!

We had a couple more animals to try to hit on our way out.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the porcupine--he was hiding.  His name is Rico and he's internet-famous for eating very adorably.  One animal we did see was the flamingos.  I didn't realize there were two different types (lesser and greater, and yes, that does relate to size).  Some of them had such bright feathers!

They were also rather ornery.  Note the fighting at the beginning--follow the squawks!

Carter was pretty much done by that point, but their constant squabbles did entertain him.  And he did consent to this picture outside the zoo when we were going to the car.

We headed back to get Craig and Jacob after Jacob's final game.  Jacob was starving so we needed to find food (Carter and I each had a piece of pizza earlier, but it seemed wise to eat on Jacob's schedule before the long drive home), and he pinpointed a place right down the road where he could get a good burger.  Unfortunately, it was a sit-down place, which meant another delay in our travels.  The restaurant and food were both good, though.

Once again Jacob wanted to hit up an outlet to look for one thing he kept trying to find.  Luckily it wasn't far off the highway and he was pretty fast, but that was yet another stop.  When we got back on the road there, I think we were looking at an 11:30pm arrival time, without counting any other food stops.  Then, when it came time for dinner, Jacob found a place in Ashland, OH, but it was--you guessed it--another sit-down place.  Ugh, there goes another hour.  I wasn't even really hungry by that point, and I was so annoyed that we weren't going to get home until super late, that I went to that place under protest.  In the end, only the boys ate.  Craig and I opted for a stop at Wendy's instead, and I just got a Frosty to eat with one of my Wawa pretzels.  We got back on the road as the sun was setting, now looking at about a 1am arrival.  Little did we know, our night was just getting started.

As we approached the outskirts of Cleveland, all of a sudden traffic came to a standstill.  The GPS was telling us it was a short delay, but the longer we sat, the worse it got.  It wasn't moving, at all.  We had no idea what was happening, no sign of progress, nothing except a couple police cars (one that came back on the shoulder a while later) and a tow truck.  Minutes turned into hours.  Yup.  Hours.  At one point Jacob had to pee in a bottle because we were just stuck there with no end in sight, and he had to go.  Around hour two, we had a little bit of movement, and the GPS seemed to think the congestion was clearing.  However, it quickly became clear that the only reason we were moving was because there was a place to cross the median way up ahead and cars were crossing as they got to it.  I think we only saw one truck give it a shot, thought, which kept the lineup pretty solid.  We couldn't actually confirm until later that there was an actual paved spot to cross, and even then we needed to do some research to confirm that there was a way to get back on track without having to use this road.  We finally found a way, and just before the three-hour mark we gave it a shot.  We had to backtrack about 10 minutes, then take some back roads to get back on another highway which led us back to the original one at a point that was past the shutdown.  What a nightmare.  But, then again, I suppose it could have been worse and been our accident or something, or it could have just been one of us there to drive and having to navigate a full overnight on the road alone.  

We did a bathroom stop once we were back on track for a bit, and then I took over driving.  Carter nodded off by about 12:30, and while Jacob tried to stay up with me as long as he could, most of the car got a good nap in between the Ohio-Pennsylvania border and somewhere around exiting the Thruway near home.  It was a very long night.  We pulled in our driveway at 4:37am, with the first morning light just starting and the early birds chirping.  Well, that was more than we bargained for.  Obviously the kids stayed home that day and we let them sleep in.  I woke up in time to call the kids into school and get myself moving for a morning meeting, which I took from home.  I did end up taking the second half of the day off just to get some rest.  It was a pretty rough day all around.  It had been a pretty good trip, but that was not a great ending.

The rest of the week was spent in similar survival mode, just trying to get caught up with life despite loss of sleep and a week's worth of chores.  Carter finished his baseball season Tuesday, finally on a gorgeous game night.  The season definitely didn't go as he'd hoped, but he did hit one of the farthest balls I've ever seen him hit in a game.  It got caught, but seeing the power and potential was a nice way to go out.  Now we just wait for his travel season to get back on track.

Jacob had an extra short week with Friday off before the long Memorial Day weekend, and his school year is pretty much done in a week, minus a couple exams.  It's been a little odd watching his same-age peers going to proms and graduating, considering he's doing none of the above.  I guess I can relate to the "college is coming" feeling, except that for him it's not college, just going away to a different school.  There are all sorts of thoughts and emotions with what our next few months might look like, but that's another post.  

Memorial Day weekend has now come and gone, as well.  It was spent close to home.  The weather was still terrible--seriously, this spring has been the worst.  At least the third rainiest ever and we've barely had any sustained warmth (and by warm I mean merely average temperatures).  We might get 70 one day followed by four days of 50s, then two days in the 90s, and then back to winter coat weather.  We had two 90 degree days before we hit an 80 degree day, but then later that week there was a frost threat again.  Saturday was super rainy all day and barely got out of the 40s.  Luckily I had a whole bunch of inside stuff to do that day, but it stunk.  Sunday was tolerable but cool and cloudy, and finally Monday was decent.  The boys went to hit baseballs, but we didn't really do much that would be considered fun.  I tackled a massive to-do list--lots of cleaning, changing two beds over to summer sheets, fixing a towel bar in our bathroom, writing an overdue email for my family reunion, changing over my decor to patriotic/summer, two shopping errands, and then a whole bunch of outside stuff once the weather cooperated, including clearing and planting my garden, planting all of my flowers, and chopping a foot of growth off my burning bushes.  I also washed winter coats and changed out all of Carter's hangers from kid ones to adult ones (::sob::).  I'm not gonna lie, I was exhausted by Monday night, and even though there were more things I wanted to do, I literally couldn't let myself add them to my list because I just needed to feel okay about relaxing a little.  Stuff for another weekend, I guess.  It sort of kills me that I can cross 14 things off my list and still have almost as many things left undone.  

It's hard to believe we've hit the unofficial start of summer now, and we're really in the home stretch of the school year.  The weather might almost be getting with the program (like, I think I can pull the rest of the cool weather clothes out of my closet now), and all the field trips and lasts of the year are imminent.  Not sure how we got here, but it happened.  Fast.  I will savor my last days of quiet working from home and mentally prepare for the speedy season of summer.  And thank goodness for 8:30pm or later sunsets for another couple months--I need every bit of warm evening mental health strolls that I can get right now!  This time of year is not for the weak!