Last week held the busiest four days that we've seen in over a year. Everything we did was worthwhile and good; it just seemed to happen all at once!
Monday: In-person school for the kids during the day, cross country practice in the persistent wind that afternoon, then the team banquet and awards ceremony that evening. Since the wind was making the temperature quite cold, I layered on two thick wool shirts underneath my team apparel shirt and wore my flannel lined jeans, wool socks, plus a lined jacket. The wind did not die down in time for us to hold our traditional team bonfire and weenie roast outside, so we piled into the large home of one of our team captains and roasted hot dogs in the fireplace in their family room (it was super weird wearing a mask inside a house). When I walked inside their house, I was immediately too warm in my many layers. I shed my jacket but couldn't get out of any more layers, and spent the evening on the edge of overheating in all of that wool. Jeff and I spent a feverish 15 minutes organizing all of the certificates, varsity letters, pins, and awards for the team before presenting them one by one with much clapping and warm hearted smiles (Jeff did all of the talking, I handed him the papers and pins). We stayed till after 8pm socializing, which is late for us homebody introverts. We love our team and their parents.
Tuesday: Online school for the kids, even though Tuesdays are normally in-person school days. I did an email parent teacher conference with Rose's teacher during the daytime, and right after cross country practice that afternoon, Jeff logged in and did a Zoom parent teacher conference with Amber's teacher while I got ready for the Relief Society activity. The activity was outdoors, so I was faced with another dressing dilemma. It had been a mellow sunny afternoon at cross country practice, so I did not feel the need to layer up my clothing. I even had the audacity to wear my new cute pink loafers with bare ankles. March 30th was far too early for bare ankles of any kind. I was freezing within ten minutes after my arrival. After helping the rest of the Relief Society presidency set up a few tables in the grass outside the church, I sat down in my chair to tough out the next 90 minutes of cold. Everyone pulled old blankets out of their trunks and we had a burrito-fiesta with frozen women swaddled in quilts propped on camp chairs. It was a good activity, but I was feeling nearly hypothermic. I was sitting next to my kind friend Tina who saw my rigid cold posture and offered to share her large quilt. So I scooted my chair closer to her and snuggled up. Tina Peabody is the only reason I survived the night.
After the activity, I helped clean up and then headed home with the heater cranked up and three leftover cupcake refreshments to share with my kids balanced on a napkin on the center console of our van. During the drive home, one cupcake took a tumble backwards into a cupholder, smearing frosting around in the dark. I rescued it and cleaned up the frosting at a stoplight. Back at home with my hands full of cupcakes, I pressed the garage door button with my elbow. Our garage door has been moody lately, and it got stuck when it was halfway closed. The door reopened, the overhead light flashed a few times, and then it went dark. I could not see a single thing in my pitch dark garage, and somewhere near my feet were three steps down to the door into our basement. There was no way I was going to attempt walking down those steps in that thick darkness with three cupcakes balanced in one hand and a purse and bag in the other!
I pushed the garage door button with my elbow, but the light did not come back on. My hands were still full of cupcakes and bags, so I felt around on the wall with my elbow for the light switch. It is a very old, stiff light switch, so I about bruised my elbow flipping it on. Somewhere in that jarring process, I dropped a cupcake onto the leafy dirty garage floor. It happened to be the same cupcake that had taken a tumble in the car, but still.
"No!!!" I gasped, and stooped to pick the cupcake up, bags swinging. My hands were too full to wipe up the pink frosting smudge, so I resolved to get inside, set down those blasted jumpy cupcakes, and come back to clean up.
With my path was illuminated and cupcakes secure once more, I began making my way down the funny little staircase into the basement. The same cupcake jumped out of my hands again and fell, frosting side down again, onto the dusty concrete floor at the base of the stairs. I was freezing. I was frustrated with our garage door and the impossible light situation. I was tired of holding cupcakes and dealing with pink frosting! The situation surpassed annoying and went straight to ridiculous. I was laughing and groaning and gasping as I finally managed to turn the doorknob and walk into the dark basement. I carried the two non-smushed cupcakes upstairs and went back down to salvage the third. I wiped all of the sticky pink frosting blobs from the garage floor and the base of the stairs. On a whim I glanced up at the garage door button. Yep, pink frosting was up there too.
"HAH! ARRRRRGGGHAH!" I grumble-laughed.
I was a little hysterical by this point. Exhaustion, near hypothermia and sentient ship-jumping cupcakes will do that to a person. I ended up scraping the frosting off the top and setting the bald cupcake next to the other two, figuring that three cupcakes for three kids would be better than two cupcakes for three kids, even if one of said cupcakes was rather bald on top.
Wednesday: Online school for the kids again after a bad night sleep for me--not a great combo, especially with the crowning glory of PMS. I told the kids that after lunch they could each have a cupcake that I had laboriously brought home from the Relief Society activity for them. As the kids filtered into the kitchen for lunch, they chose their cupcakes on a first-come first-serve basis. Jay was first and ate a fluffy frosting'd cupcake, then Amber ate the other fully frosting-fluffed cupcake. Rose came in last to eat the bald ship-jumping cupcake of terror. Surprisingly, they all seemed happy to have cupcakes, regardless of frosting content. Later when I walked through the kitchen, I saw Amber's plate on the table with a large blob of pink frosting scraped onto it.
"You didn't like the frosting?" I asked, suppressing the ominous quiver in my diaphragm.
"The frosting made my mouth think it had POISON in it." Amber replied. No mild emotions for that girl. The pink frosting was clearly a plague, from beginning to end.
Wednesday was the last day of cross country practice for our delayed-start 2020 season! When we got home from practice, the 600 square foot main floor of our house house had NINE kids packed into it. Jay's friends and their siblings from two neighboring houses plus another house a few miles away had all converged on our Minecraft hotspot home to do battle and build virtual cities together. The kids were just finishing up an epic group game of Minecraft as we walked in the door. They moved en masse to the kitchen and doled out the Cheezits for a snack. I don't mind kids having fun and liking to be in our house (even though it baffles me that our little house is their gathering place of choice), but that particular day I was exhausted from both the external and internal rigors of the week the week and the crowds and the crumbs and the noise were overwhelming! I sent everyone outside and did some deep calming breaths in my closet.
Thursday: Jeff and I got round two of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine and went straight to the high school to prep for the last cross country meet. The finale to our cross country season, the district meet, was held in Yakima. One more bus ride. One more afternoon away from Jay, Rose, and Amber. On the way to Yakima, Jeff and I conquered an overly chatty bus driver by pretending to confer with each other over Mysterious Coach Plans.
In Yakima, the weather was mild and the sun was shining. Usually the trees are red and orange with autumnal colors at cross country meets, but Thursday they were pink with springtime blossoms! It was an excellent meet with four schools attending, and our runners did well. We finished our unexpected, good, unexpectedly good, shortest (6 week official season), longest (started practicing 5 months ago in October), 2020 cross country season with our #1 guy Reid finishing #1 and our #1 girl Kaylee finishing 9th overall. Our other runners finished strong as well and I felt so many feelings as Jeff and I sprinted around the park to different parts of the course, giving coach-ly encouragement during the races. It is the BEST being there for the everyday hard work these runners put in, and then seeing it pay off for them in a race. My little coachy heart was full to bursting.
We got home just before 7pm and sagged in exhausted salty relief to be done, to be home, and to be on spring break officially!
Pictures:
Moody sky with slanting sun rays on a windy evening.
Jay was used to coasting through school with minimal effort
all through elementary school. When middle school began, he took a few months
to adjust. This week, he earned one of the cool signs the school delivers to
straight A students. Yay Jay!
Amber made a flag out of a stick and her mask at cross country practice on Monday. It actually caught the wind rather well.
Reid and Kaylee, seniors, team captains, coached by Jeff since 8th grade, excellent human beings. Boy are we going to miss these stellar seniors next season!
Amber, doing the Pledge of Allegiance in online school on Tuesday.
I gave Jay a haircut on Tuesday and he wanted me to take a picture halfway through.
Blurry picture of Jay walking with his buddies to go play Dungeons and Dragons. Jay has gotten so many of his friends excited about Dungeons and Dragons. These boys are cute.
We released balloons with goals written on papers inside them at our Relief society activity. (Forgive us please, Mother Earth.) Several balloons were too small to float so we really only had about a dozen lift off into the mysterious beyond.
SPLAT. I took this picture after going inside to set down all of the other stuff I was carrying.
The frosting was weird stuff, kind of like Cool Whip with food dye. We got the cupcakes from Pepe's Bakery in Sunnyside, and they were definitely pretty, even if the frosting was strange. It didn't stick as much as I expected, but it still managed to get everywhere nonetheless.
Wednesday: keep it together, Shaina, one more day of cross country season before you collapse into recovery mode. (Also: my 100 day dress challenge is still going strong--over a third of the way done now!)
Thursday reminder.
Right after we got our second shots, we had to sit for fifteen minutes to make sure we didn't have any adverse reactions. Jeff snagged this picture before I could show off my bandaid.
Obligatory post-shot bandaid pic!
Our sweet girls cross country team on the starting line, about to remove their masks for the race.
The start! They ran between these beautiful pink trees and it was just so uniquely different from our usual fall season.
Reid led the boys' race for the entire 3 miles. It was FUN to watch.
Senior parents are the most sentimental, so we got another picture with Reid and Kaylee after their races. We're sure going to miss these two.
I learned a lot about coaching and leading teenagers during this prolonged cross country season. Hopefully I can retain some of whatever nebulous Things I Learned for the next cross country season, which we will begin practicing for in...four months! Haha. Hurrah for a springtime cross country season!
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