Our first real snow of the new Fall and Winter. School was cancelled as a result, before it even started actually, and the kids are downstairs killing each other. Better that than video games.
First snows are always the nicest for some reason:
It won’t last long, but we’ll enjoy it while it’s around.
It turned out that today’s hockey tryout was for a new travel team the youth league is trying to put together. That meant it was actually optional for him since making a bigger commitment to hockey isn’t in the cards. We didn’t know that until after it was all said and done. He’s going to be going into a black belt testing cycle after the New Year and that will take a bigger commitment from him at the dojang. There’s only so much of him to go around.
It would be different if hockey was something he loved. On the way over to the practice, he mentioned the travel team and said unequivocally that he didn’t want to play any travel hockey. He also said he wasn’t looking forward to being on the ice for 3 hours. He liked hockey, but not that much. Karate, on the other hand, is a different story.
So he participated in the tryout and I thought I knew what to expect- a kind of half-hearted effort. I’ve watched him enough and seen his effort level when he’s really not into something and his body language makes it pretty obvious he is not focused on the task at hand. It drives me crazy, but I bite my tongue and remind myself he’s young. I once half-assed my way through some sports and eventually came around. I just have to trust he’ll do the same.
That’s what I expected, but what I witnessed was something else entirely. He was focused and alert. His body language screamed effort and paying attention and trying to compete. He performed the skating and puck handling drills as well as I’ve seen him do them. Then they had a scrimmage and I was really impressed. He hung back and played an aggressive defense in front of his goalie, moving towards the puck, keeping it away from the goal. He even pushed a couple of pucks up the ice when he had the opportunity and scored on one of them.
It was really enjoyable to watch. His competitiveness had clearly taken over and it brought out some of his best effort and hockey play.
When it was all done, I told him I thought he’d done really well. I even kidded with him a bit that if he didn’t want to qualify for a team, he shouldn’t have played so well. Naturally, he took it in stride. After 3 hours on the ice, he was tired, cold and hungry. We headed home to take care of all 3 of those.
Today started with an early trip to a Scout camp to pick up popcorn. Aside from the ginger bread house, that was about as exciting as it got.
Not that there wasn’t any tension along the way. The kids were at each other’s throats this morning. Right up until the boy left for a pre-test to enter into the Spring testing cycle for his Junior Black Belt at the dojang. He was gone for the better part of 3 hours for the testing.
During that time, the lass and I sorted all the popcorn and waited for people to come and pick it up. That was my main thing for today and it made it awkward to try and do anything else meaningful, since I’d likely have to stop to take care of pickups. The lass and I had lunch together and we played that “box” game where players take turns drawing lines on a grid with the goal to be the one to form the most boxes. I think the lass was trying to be sneaky, drawing lines a bit lightly when she knew they could cost her. She wasn’t exactly cheating but she was pushing it.
As for the gingerbread house, that’s been a Christmas tradition ever since the kids were old enough to put frosting on candy and stick it to things. The Wife took care of baking the pieces to the house and then she and I assembled the house. Tomorrow, the kids will take care of decorating it and giving the house a yard.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a marathon day of hockey. Not for the lass, since she’s still on the Physically Unable to Play List. The boy has some kind of tryout to participate in, that’s why it’s to be a long session.
Already thinking about tomorrow. Like I said, it was a quiet day.
The Wife returned from her business trip with a crick in her neck. That’s a “crick” like a sore spot in her neck, not like the proper pronunciation of the word for a small stream that’s spelled “c-r-e-e-k.” The crick is a nasty little muscle spasm that I suggested she put some ice on to help start breaking it up.
So the lass retrieved one of the ice packs from the freezer and a dish towel because the ice pack is too cold to put on bare skin. Or, at least the Wife’s bare skin. The thing is that particular ice pack has its own pouch which obviates the need for a dish towel. The lass claimed that she looked for it and could not find it.
So the Wife asked the boy to fetch the ice pack pouch. She even gave him very specific instructions: it’s in the freezer. The little 5 cubic foot freezer that is the bottom third or so of our refrigerator.
Thirty seconds later, the boy was yelling back “It’s not there,” which, in hindsight, was totally predictable. Generally speaking, neither child could find air in a room, let alone a needle in a haystack or, more usefully, a pouch for an ice pack in a freezer. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember. It’s not just for stuff that we want them to find either. They’ll misplace their own things and it almost always falls to the Wife or I to find it- which we invariably do in short order.
Almost 100% of the time, the object turns out to be in a perfectly reasonable and obvious area where they looked but did not see. Once, I found a book of the boys on his book shelf in his room. He was flabbergasted and I recall him asking “What was it doing there?” The mind boggles. This morning, the lass couldn’t find her sneakers. She’d left them on the floor near the Wife’s rocking chair in our family room. The lass “looked” for them by walking back and forth between the foyer and the kitchen, swiveling her head saying “They aren’t anywhere…”
Returning to the missing ice pack pouch in the freezer, the Wife got up to go and look for it. I was busy re-starting the fire. From my spot on the floor, with a lighter in one hand and a starter log in the other (yes, I cheated this time) I called out to both of kids “I guarantee you Mom finds it exactly where we said it was.” The boy said “I looked in the freezer, it isn’t there.”
So, since he looked in there and it wasn’t there when he looked, imagine his surprise when 10 seconds later the Wife said “What was it that Dad said?” She emerged triumphant from the kitchen with the ice pack pouch dangling in her hand.
“How did you find it? I looked in there and it wasn’t there!” the boy cried incredulously. I can’t tell if he’s just really good at feigning it or if he really was incredulous.
“Easy, I actually looked. You didn’t. Sometimes you actually have to move things around to look for something,” the Wife explained.
“Parents have magical powers to find things,” was the boys response. “Something isn’t there and they can just magically make it appear.”
Maybe, perhaps, someday, he’ll figure it out.
Ugh. My understanding is November was way to the cooler side of the scale, with temperatures almost 2 degrees below normal. My woodpile can attest to that.
As the saying goes, though, “Past performance does not necessarily indicate future performance.” Right now, it’s 50 degrees out there tonight and I’m seriously considering letting our fire die out for the night. By the looks of things, it’ll cool down a smidge tomorrow into the mid 40’s and stay there. The house isn’t like to cool off much with those kinds of temps.
The cool is supposed to return this weekend along with some kind of messy storm. Joy. The messy storm part anyway. I don’t mind the cool.
The boy kept referring to the lass using the first-name-middle-name construction. Where I come from, that signals great displeasure with the named individual. Usually, it comes from a parent to a child when the child is caught doing something egregiously wrong. In this case, I think it was more the lass’ general existence that the boy had a problem with.
“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” was her reply.
Naturally, the boy did not oblige his sister.
“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” she said again. This time, she punctuated it by half-heartedly hitting him on the arm.
“Stop hitting me,” the boy changed his tune.
“STOP CALLING ME THAT!” the lass said. Again. It’s hard to describe the tone she uses when she’s riled like that. Every word is spoken harshly and in an angry tone that makes for a very distinctive delivery. The boy is completely nonplussed by it, though.
“Stop hitting me,” the boy repeated.
“STOP CALLING ME THAT!”
“Stop hitting me.”
“STOP CALLING ME THAT!”
With this battle of wits raging on, I glanced at the clock and noted, mercifully, that it was time to go to school. I made the announcement to the kids.
“Dad, my sister is hitting me,” the boy called out as he got up to head for the car.
“No I am not!”
“Yes you are.”
“No I am not!”
“Yes you are.”
“No I am not!”
I had all but tuned them out. By my reckoning, there was no point to getting involved. The only thing I could do was start yelling. Then, each one would justify their behavior based on what the other had done to them. Then, I’d be forced to play judge for who was worse behaved. Then, I’d be “wrong” and would have to listen to why. Then, I’d engage in scorched earth tactics and ban them from ever using their mouths ever again for anything other than eating.
The boy got in one last dig. He was the first to the car, and thus the first to claim shotgun. Most importantly, he was the first in the car. So when his sister arrived and went to open the door, he pressed the LOCK button on the doors, thwarting her attempt to enter just as she pulled on the handle. The timing was so exquisite that I couldn’t help but admire it.
One second later, whatever peace had existed in the neighborhood was shattered by the shriek of the lass. Apparently, she didn’t think much of her brother’s timing. Shaking my head, I pushed the unlock button on the key fob, which thankfully also served as an OFF button for the lass’ screaming. She huffily climbed in, uttering dark mutterings that I couldn’t quite make out. I did not need to- I knew the gist of them.
The ride to school was silent. I’m not sure why. Perhaps they had expended their venom for each other. Perhaps they were going over the day to come- anticipating classes and interactions. Perhaps they were just zoning out for the boring ride in.
Whatever the reason, it was a relief.
So roughly 2 weeks after she got it, the lass had her cast taken off today. In typical lass fashion, she thoroughly enjoyed the process. Mainly because it tickled her foot when the saw was cutting through her cast. She peppered the nurse with all kinds of questions about the saw and the vacuum and what else could the saw cut through and is that the only thing the saw is used for why doesn’t it cut through the soft stuff but it can cut through the hard stuff and yada, yada, yada. The nurse was good natured about the whole thing.
After the cast came off, she still had to use her crutches to go down to get an x-ray taken of her leg. I was kind of curious about what it would look like. Having never seen x-rays of a youngster’s leg, I had no idea I was looking at her growth plate until the doctor came in and set to show us some of the highlights. The break is still partly there, but it’s attached enough so that she can walk around without crutches. I noticed some atrophy in her lower leg, but I’m sure that will recover quickly now that she can use it again.
The doctor left open the possibility of her using a single crutch to help her around. She had her get up and try walking first with no crutches and then with a single crutch on the opposite side from the injured leg. She’d barely taken three steps with the crutch when he declared “No, we don’t want you doing that. No crutches.”
Still no gym or running and dancing for a couple more weeks. The doctors didn’t schedule another visit, so I’m assuming by then she’ll be good to go.
As happy as she is that she’s rid of the cast and her crutches, there is a down side she’ll come to realize. All those chores her brother had been doing for her will now be hers to do once again.
Today’s highlight would have to be the parade in the next town. In my book, that is not necessarily a great highlight, but opinions may vary. Being the Cubmaster for our Cub Scout Pack, I had a front row seat for the parade as I marched in it with the boy. I guess that makes things a bit more interesting.
Can you tell I’m not a huge parade enthusiast?
Thankfully, we’ve got members of the Pack who are enthusiastic about parades and they did a nice job of organizing and putting together a float. This year, we had a Pinewood Derby car as the center piece, along with a few thousand lights wrapped around it. It wouldn’t have qualified for race day because of weight, but it made for a nice float.
I arrived with the boy on the early side expecting to have to help with setup. The reality was everything was basically ready to go, except for our Pack flag which I forgot to bring along. A quick ride home and back fixed that. When I returned, a camera crew had shown up offering to let us record a quick spot to promote Scouting. It was one of those moments where leadership had its disadvantages. I made the most of it though.
The Scouts were all antsy by the time the parade started. Quite a few of them had been sitting around for a couple of hours. The nice thing about them being with each other is they all take turns entertaining each other. We have a good crew of kids so they never got too out of control. They were all relieved when the floats in front of us finally started rolling.
The hardest part of the parade is the candy. In past years we’ve had the Scouts hand out the candy. They typically get left far behind and end up running and sprinting to catch up. So this year, we started with the parents handing out candy, of which I was one. I turned to the crowd and saw a group of kids with candy bags, so I headed over and handed out a bunch. When I turned around, our float was gone. Whoever was setting the pace was definitely keeping it on the fast side. I continued to hand out candy as best I could, but I had to skip a lot of people in order to finally catch back up with our float.
By that point, we hit the main drag through town and a bunch of the Scouts wanted to hand out candy. So they hopped off and got to it. While they were doing that, I stopped to say hello to the lass and the Wife, who were both in the crowd. The lass got some candy and a kiss. The Wife just got some candy.
I gave up my candy duties and assumed the role of watchdog, keeping an eye on the Scouts as they walked along the crowd handing out candy. I also played the part of the enforcer. Now that a few Scouts had escaped the confines of the float, others wanted to jump down and walk as well. I put the kibosh on that though, since the 4 or 5 we had walking was enough to keep track of. It’s always a great way to start the Holiday season with “Hey, we lost your kid in the crowd.”
Once all the candy was expended, we started herding the boys back onto the float for the end of the parade and the ride back to our starting point. We continued to wish “Merry Christmas!” to anyone who’d listen as we made our way and the boys sand “Rudolph” a few times. The biggest thrill for the kids was riding on a trailer out in the open, since under normal circumstances they wouldn’t be doing that sort of thing. Fortunately for them, a parade doesn’t qualify as normal circumstances.
When it was all done and said, the boy was cold and tired. We got home an hour or so before bed time and he spent it warming up. When his head finally hit his pillow, he went out quickly and quietly.
Maybe parade’s aren’t so bad after all.