Sports, hybrid, and misc.

TWO EXCITING THINGS THAT WERE ALSO STRESSFUL AT FIRST: 

1. Hybrid elementary school is back on the schedule! Our district delayed the start time of 2-days-per-week hybrid model so they could get all of the details negotiated and nailed down. Rose and Amber will start in-person school on November 9th. They will attend two days each week, and do regular online school the other three days. Hybrid school starting up wasn't stressful until the second piece of news hit me hard moments later...

2. Following an intense sport-by-sport classification system of risks, high school sports are allowed to practice on a rotating schedule. It is off-season conditioning, and the athletic director divided the time between the three sports seasons (fall, winter, and spring sports). It's a rotating schedule with each season receiving three days of practice at a time, starting with fall sports. That means: cross country practiced Thurs/Fri/Sat this week, then next week winter sports practice Mon/Tues/Wed and spring sports practice Thurs/Fri/Sat. The next round of cross country practices happens that following Mon/Tues/Wed. It is a very irregular schedule and I was super stressed about it all while trying to figure out transportation to and from school for Rose and Amber. 

Also, Jeff is an assistant track coach and track is a spring sport, he coaches for 2/3 of the days, aka 6 days of the 9 day rotation. Is your brain swirling yet? I don't think I'm explaining this very well. But that's LIFE right now: hard to explain. We had our first day of cross country practice on Thursday, October 29th. Since cross country was classified as the lowest-health-risk sport (germ transmission-wise), our guidelines are bearable. Before each practice, we have to take everyone's temperature and ask them a list of health questions, then record all data on a website. The kids have to wear masks and stay six feet apart from each other whenever we are standing around, but when we run they get to take off their masks. 

I was nervous to jump back into coaching after so much time off! Two days after I found out about sports practices resuming, I was at practice, coach-game on, dodging/wading through my plethora of coaching insecurities. But we had a manageable 14 kids come on day one, so it was a breeze--mostly. I was still taken off guard at how many little questions needed to be answered and how many moments needed to be handled even with just over a dozen runners. Since it's off-season running, Jeff and I ran a workout WITH the teenagers on Thursday, even though I haven't done a running workout or even attempted to run fast in a year. Let's just say recovery takes longer and longer the closer I get to age 40! And running fast on grass makes my ankles feel twice as old as the rest of me.

SO: In order to adapt to the sudden sports start-up, we had to change the time of Jay and Rose's piano lessons. I have to figure out how to get Rose and Amber home from their two different schools and get to cross country practice by 3pm on that rotating schedule. It seems like everything happens at 3pm! Thankfully, the girls will only have school on Monday and Tuesdays, so their school days will only coincide with cross country practice days some of the time. And this seasonal sports practice rotation schedule will only last until Christmas. It is all manageable, as long as I write down every single time and place I have to be somewhere and do deep cleansing breaths every time the stress strikes! 

Thursday was busy. I had to meet with Amber's teacher for a one-on-one hybrid school orientation. Then the kids had piano lessons at a new time of day and the only time I had to go to Walmart was during their lessons. I had to herd a typically energetic Amber, who hadn't been in a store for well over six months, all over Walmart. Right after that frazzling Walmart journey, it was time for my first coaching gig in over a year. After dinner that night, I attended a 1 hour 45 minute virtual Relief Society Presidency meeting. Overnight, I went from dozens of back-to-back calm sedate uneventful days to a super busy draining intense day! Talk about going from zero to sixty! My "busy-muscles" were completely atrophied. I don't like being busy in general, but I can build up a certain tolerance for it over time. That tolerance was completely lost to the pandemic. The next day, I was completely wiped OUT. 

The next rotation of cross country practices coincides with the girls' first day of in-person school. It's all or nothing around here!

In the spirit of all-or-nothing, here's an everyday miscellaneous photo album from the second half of October:

Sunrise through the walnut tree.

Amber was very proud of this crown that she made.

We watched a regional stake conference broadcast draped all over mine and Jeff's bedroom.

Paper claws: an origami trend.

Lunchtime: Amber makes herself a peanut butter sandwich, then scoops an extra knife-full of Nutella to lick.

The canal began the seasonal draining process on or around October 20th.

Amber and I coped with watching the final presidential debate with a hair salon. All five of us watched the debate, and I was surprised that the kids actually sat there and watched the whole thing. Maybe they were excited to stay up later? Maybe they were fascinated at the adults arguing on live TV?

We tend to overdress on the first cold day of the season.

Amber read two Bob Books on October 23rd! She has been really getting excited about her kindergarten sight words, so I pulled out our tattered set of beginner Bob books and she read me two of them with minimal help. I don't think kids should be required to learn to read in kindergarten, but I do encourage any interests. It is so much fun to watch kids start to read independently--one of my favorite milestones.

Jeff and I were quietly talking one night when Amber popped in and photo-bombed our moment.

Boring ole moody gray bike path run on a blustery Saturday morning.

Rose likes to snuggle up.

Amber likes to practice proper writing technique in her workbook, then write in her own way everywhere else.

I swear a giant coyote trotted through the mint field last week. The only other local coyotes I've seen have been super scrawny and scrappy, but this majestic fellow was a king. Jeff wasn't so sure it was an actual coyote when I showed him this grainy picture, but the way the animal was prowling and slinking was very wild. Plus that pointed muzzle and the shape of its tail! It was totally a coyote, probably lured by the clucking of our neighbors' chickens.

Amber slept in fleece pajama pants worn on her arms as a jacket one night.

This horse mask is creepy no matter who is wearing it.

October has inspired several rounds of early morning dress-up. The biggest storage cupboards are in my bedroom, so while I sat in bed in my pajamas reading my scriptures, Amber dumped out the dress-up box and tried on costumes.

Jeff worked from home one afternoon and Amber joined him for a Zoom meeting. She knows some of the nice girls who are in both our ward and Jeff's French class, so she wanted to say hi to them.

October 31st: It wouldn't be Halloween without a cross country event! Last year Oct. 31st was our district meet (state qualifier). Today was just our third cross country practice of the year. We did a time trial on our new course. I wore my black and white striped "witch" socks and briefly improvised a witch hat before using it to mark the course.

The few, the proud: We had a dozen high schoolers show up to our Halloween cross country time trial. The good thing about off-season practice is it's basically the cream of the crop, aka the nice kids who actually care and try.

After playing outside for nearly two hours at the park during our cross country time trial, we swung by Pepe's Bakery on the way home for a little Halloween sugar influx. Two boxes of donuts and pastries at Pepe's cost as much as a dozen of Krispy Kremes.

The maple bacon bars won! Closely followed by: that still-warm chocolate chip bun and the jelly filled donuts. We said goodbye to October in perfectly Pepe style!