Middle School Track and Field, Week 1

Good news: I survived the first week of practice as middle school head track coach! It was a lot--it was good, but it was a lot. While my five years of experience as a high school assistant cross country coach were immensely helpful, I quickly learned that being an actual Head Coach is very different from assistant coaching. Being in charge, the decision maker, attendance taker, practice planner, workout writer, and the MC of every practice takes a lot of preparation, wits, brainpower, courage, and raw energy. But I did it, and it was fun! Using my mini voice amplifier was key.

Music, Sunshine, Projects

The week began on Sunday with my brother Brad's annual March Madness email. Every year Brad writes an ode to March Madness and invites the extended family to create NCAA basketball brackets and join the family competition in a private group online. I am not a basketball person. This year I felt especially uninspired to fill out a 60+ team bracket--my mental capacities were already maxed out by the impending track season and my Relief Society responsibilities. Jeff felt similarly. He said "I'll sit out of the Brown Family March Madness Throwdown this year if you do!" And I fell even more in love with him. Sweet freedom! Not wanting to impose our own anti-basketball-ness onto our children, we gave them the option to join the family competition with brackets of their own. Jay and Amber decided to do it. So on Sunday night, they chose screen names, made their picks, and locked in their brackets, representing the White family in the competition. After the first round of the tournament, AmberQueen was in first place out of the entire extended family! 

On Sunday night, we played a family game of our most competitive current favorite card game: Cover Your Assets (the game involves stealing money cards from each other). It is worth noting because Amber did not cry at the end when she lost! Jay defeated all of us soundly, and we took a family selfie to commemorate the evening. I took so few pictures last week, and I LOVE my photo memories from past years so much that I was determined to take more pictures this week.

Haircuts, Volcanoes, Track, PT,

The clock is ticking down toward the first day of middle school track season. Tick tock, tick tock. Even when I'm not actively making plans and lists and spreadsheets about track practice, that clock is ticking and the gears are turning in the back of my brain. It wakes me up before dawn frequently, demanding that my brain Figure Out More Details Immediately. The incessant mental ticking also makes me feel extra busy, like a time crunch--get as much done as possible before the time is up! It is maddening. I just want the season to start already so I can stop wondering, prepping, and worrying about it! We have one more week to wait. In the meantime, I try to limit myself to an hour or two of track prep per day and I am doing my best to also take some total mental break time each day where I don't let myself think about anything. K-dramas to the rescue! Some days this week I only managed to watch a few uninterrupted minutes of an episode, but it was still a necessary break. 

Track and Cold

March blew in on a strong cold wind this week. The first day of high school track practice was on Monday. As planned, I helped out at high school track practice every day this week. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally! Seeing 100 new teenage faces each afternoon caused my brain to freeze up with information overload, so I could only manage to learn and remember one new name per day. And then there was the weather. It was in the low 40s, calm, and partly sunny for the first two days, but I did not dress in enough layers. After practice on Monday I was nearly certain that I'd never feel warm again. I dug deep into my wardrobe after that pre-hypothermic experience and wore thick merino leggings underneath fleece lined wind pants, with a wool shirt, a merino-lined windbreaker, and a down coat on top and thick gloves plus a hat to track practice for the rest of the week. Track coaches have very few opportunities to run with the team (to generate body heat), and as my friend sagely commented, "it's pretty much impossible to wear enough layers to stay warm while standing around out in the cold." After this week, I concur with this statement 100%.

February Album

 February is somehow almost over. High school track practice starts tomorrow. It all feels so sudden. Ready or not, track season is upon us! I still have a few weeks before middle school track season begins, but that hardly matters because Jeff asked me to help with the high school team until then, so it's full steam ahead. The high school has been unable to find a 6th assistant coach. (which does not bode well for me getting an assistant on the middle school team...) I agreed to help out at the high school practices for three weeks until my middle school season begins. Hopefully spending time with the 130+ kids on the high school team will help me get used to coaching track, as well as maybe make my 41-person middle school team seem more manageable when the season starts. 

17 Hearts

Valentine's Day always creeps up on me unexpectedly. This year, I didn't remember to get valentines for Amber's classmates at school until the night before February 14th. I learned that Valentine's Eve is a scary time to be at the store in Sunnyside. I absolutely couldn't face a trip to Walmart, so I went to Safeway, which is the closest store to our house. The parking lot was jam packed with cars, and inside the grocery store was a chaotic explosion of red heart-shaped balloons and bouquets of flowers covering every surface. I walked around in shock searching in vain for a box of school valentine cards. There were none, so I settled for a bag of Hershey's Hugs (the Hershey's Kisses were sold out). I stood in line, paid for the waxy chocolate, and got out of there as fast as I could. 

Two Heads

Are two heads better than one? Time will tell. We now have two head coaches in our house. I have a new coaching job! Actually, I have a second coaching job. As of Tuesday, I am the head track and field coach for Harrison Middle School. It seems so sudden and intense, but this has been in the works for a while. 

It all started a year ago on the first day of the high school track season. It was Jeff's first day as head track coach, and one of his six assistants was out with a back injury. I reluctantly agreed to come help. I lasted part of that first practice before crazy air quality circumstances caused the schools to pause busses, which left Amber and Rose stranded at the elementary school waiting for a parent to pick them up. When I got that phone call, I left high school track practice early and never went back. My kids needed me! How could I ever be a track coach and a mom? I make it work during cross country season with great effort, much planning, and a solid dose of difficulty. But why would I want to do that twice in one year?

Rose by the dozen

Rose turned 12 years old this week! Her birthday was on Tuesday, but we began celebrating the Sunday before with a big family dinner. Four cousins, two grandparents, an aunt, and an uncle came to Rose's Sunday birthday dinner. We had Rose's favorite homemade creamy macaroni and cheese with pulled pork and salad. Since our kitchen table capacity is eight people, we ate in shifts: the seven kids ate first, followed by the six adults. The kids chowed down so much mac that the adults had to scrape a few spoonfuls off of the sides of the pot to get a few bites! Thankfully the pulled pork held out and everyone got enough to eat.

Rose and Amber used up the rest of our paper streamers to decorate the family room for the birthday dinner. They also blew up several balloons. It was a very chaotic festive family evening. I think Rose felt celebrated. 

Slow Week

 My week was a slow motion battle with my body: a slow four day recovery from last weekend's sickness, slowly easing back into physical activity, a visit to the chiropractor wherein my shoulder and hip were put back in place and we discussed the slow process of healing from the lingering side effects of these malignments. It was all very slow and maddening.

The kids had a regular routine school week. Rose did unintentional battle with the mean girls in P.E. class, and after a rude hurtful confrontation from them which later involved a stellar teacher, the mean girls left Rose alone for the rest of the week. Jay ran five miles with his friend after school one day and felt the endorphin rush. One day after school, Amber reported that "my friend freaked out and stood on the desk and started throwing crayons, and the teacher had to wrestle him down. Our class was evacuated." A few weeks ago, Amber's teacher told me how sweet it is that Amber is friends with the "hard kids" and genuinely likes and helps them. My heart was warm when Amber described the situation in her class as something her friend did--no judgement, just events. It is so Amber to see through to the heart of each human and I hope I can help her cultivate that kindness. 

A few minutes

If you can't tell by my last post about my invisibility cloak, it was a long week. It was parent teacher conference week at the high school. Jeff and I barely saw each other for a few minutes per day all week. Monday and Tuesday were parent teacher conferences until nearly 8pm. Wednesday night was youth activities from 6:30-8pm for all three kids at the church, with a Relief Society presidency meeting for me during that time. On Thursday, Jeff coached another swim meet way out at Moses Lake High School, and didn't get home till 9:30pm. This series of events came right after last week's Thursday and Saturday far-away late night swim meets, so we were already in "together-time-debt" when the week began!

We were all settled in for family movie night on Friday when Jeff's phone rang and he had to take a 15 minute call from a sports therapist who's been trying to reach him for weeks. That 15 minutes was the ultimate test of our endurance. The kids and I all had to resist the strong urge to go latch onto Jeff's limbs and demand his attention, haha.

The Invisibility Cloak

I have an invisibility cloak. 

On Tuesday morning, Amber prayed for me "to have a good day relaxing at home." On Thursday morning, Jay prayed for everyone else in the room but forgot to pray for me at all. Both kids' prayers outline the invisibility of a good mom. One one hand, there's the assumption that I spend all day relaxing at home while my family is working and learning and living. On the other hand, there's the complete lack of notice. These two attitudes weave together to create the fascinating fabric of my invisibility cloak.

Four Sunny Days

We had four sunny days this week! January is usually so dreary, it was a JOY to have the sun shining for more than half of the days this week. I went on two runs wearing shorts! It was only in the 40s, but with the sun shining, I was able to pull off wearing shorts and long sleeves while running. Everything is so much easier and more interesting and happy when the sun is shining. 

Our week was in no way perfect. I started the week in a cranky grumpy irritable hormonal funk that took three days to lift entirely. Jeff was recovering from a nasty cold and at lower energy than usual. Jay came down with Jeff's intense cold and it lingered all week. He missed some school for it and probably should've missed more than he did. (I will resist the mom-guilt! I will!) Jeff had two high school swim meets to drive to and coach at this week, so on top of his post-cold recovery, he was gone more.