While looking through the small handful of pictures I took this week today, I felt a little pang of nostalgia. We are out of the "cute" stage. Jay, Rose, and Amber are growing up more and more, and I can't just snap cute pictures of them playing, eating, and sleeping anymore. It made me miss having endless opportunities to take and treasure up pictures of my younger children. I realized yet again that we really are out of the little kid stage. I don't miss messes and diapers and crying AT ALL. But even though I will always think my kids are cute, this teenage phase is less photographically cute and therefore I take less pictures in general each week. I'm not sure where I was going with these musings, but those are my thoughts right now.
This week was the last week of the trimester at school, which meant every single concert, performance, and project was due and happened. Jay had an orchestra festival trip all day on Wednesday, the regional science fair all day on Thursday, and his high school orchestra concert on Thursday night, plus tests in other classes, early morning seminary track practice every afternoon, and the first track meet of the season on Saturday. High school is no joke!
Rose had two concerts: middle school band on Tuesday night and middle school orchestra on Thursday night (right before Jay's high school orchestra concert. Rose also had piano lessons on Monday night, a stake young women's activity on Saturday, and she attended high school track practice almost every afternoon.
Amber was dragged every which way all week. She and I did manage to have some quality time that didn't fall under the category of "drag the youngest child around." She had piano lessons on Monday night too, but during Rose's piano lesson, Amber and I went to the library (a few blocks away from piano lessons) to check out a fresh stack of books. On Saturday, after dropping Rose and 3 other girls off at the young women's activity, Amber and I went shopping for a few clothing items for Amber. Then we rode scooters in the stake center parking lot until Rose's activity ended. Rose and Amber caught a ride home with our friends, and I drove around the corner to watch Jay's track meet.
The first track meet of the high school season was a jamboree, which meant it was done early in the season and the events were at non-standard distances. Jay ran the 1000m and the 2000m (in other words, he ran the 1k and the 2k-- no matter how I write the distances they look odd). The day started out somewhat warm and sunny, but as the afternoon progressed, a brief cloudburst drenched everyone before giving way to high winds that made the last half of the running events extra eventful. At the outset, I had planned on only watching Jay's races and maybe 2 other races of interest. I even downloaded a few Netflix episodes and also brought my sketchbook and Kindle, planning to retreat to my minivan between events for some R&R.
But I ended up being more in coach mode than mom mode at this meet--like 70/30 coach/mom mode ratio, so I never retreated and ended up standing outside in the wind at the meet fielding event questions, explaining track topics, providing comfort, and giving pep talks for nearly five hours. It was a bit more than I expected to do, so I was more tired than I would've been if I had planned on being in coach mode at the meet--if that makes sense. Endurance is all about expectations. If I expect to be outside in the wind for one hour and it actually ends up being five hours, it feels extra tiring. At one point I left and drove a few miles down the road to a grocery store to get PBJ supplies for 50 because so many kids were starving at the meet. Then I had to park even farther away from the track and hike what felt like half a mile back in lugging grocery bags. (For the record, $35 goes a long way in bread, peanut butter, jam, and bananas.) Tiredness notwithstanding, I was so glad to be at the track meet because I love all of those kids. Now that I think of it, maybe I was in mom-mode for the whole meet after all, haha.
The rest of my week leading up to Saturday was also busy because as a parent of three busy kids, I was involved in all of their activities, plus some of my own. On Monday and Friday I had intense strength workouts at the PT clinic. My shoulder issue flared up over the weekend and I ended up going into the PT clinic on Tuesday as well for some shoulder specific treatment including heat, electro stim, cupping, mobility, and taping. It is still a complete mystery to me why I have a chronic rotator cuff issue when the only sport I've ever done is running! On Tuesday I went from high school track practice straight to Rose's band concert, which I ducked out of early (after Rose's 7th grade band finished playing), so I could head over to the church for a Relief Society activity. I got home at 9pm Tuesday night, and Jeff went to bed 15 minutes later. Busy weeks make me miss my husband!
On Thursday, I had to drive 45 minutes to the tri cities to pick Jay up early from the science fair so he could get back to the high school in time for his orchestra concert. Since it was a long way to go JUST to pick him up, I made the most of it and scheduled a temple session. I even remembered to print off a family name to take to the temple with me! It was only the second time I've ever managed to bring my own family name, so it felt extra victorious. I ran two quick errands after the temple session, picked up Jay, and then drove back to Sunnyside. We arrived 15 minutes before Rose's orchestra concert began.
After church on Sunday (today), I gave all three of my kids haircuts. It took over an hour between the three of them, and I was totally sweating by the end. Cutting hair is not easy: three kids, three different hairstyles, and three different levels of hair thickness. Jay just wanted the back and sides trimmed this time. Amber asked for a shorter haircut, and Rose wanted a very small trim. Who's going to cut my hair for free?
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