Poofy

My beard exceeded the maximum poofiness allowed a while back. I've told Carrie that if she wanted to cut my hair I'd trim it. Today, she consented to shave my neck.

"Any requests?" I asked.

"Surprise me," Carried replied.

Farewell, beard.

Hello, 70s.

 "You look like a lumberjack!"

Carrie couldn't look away (but not in the good way). I blew her mind! I refused to trim it, too, until she completed her part of the bargain and trimmed my neck.

I ended up with this. It's been years since my beard has been this small. The first thing I noticed was how cold my hands were on my cheeks. Feels odd.

Carrie made me promise to tell her about how my students react tomorrow.

We're Taking Off Wednesday

Decorations are modest so far.

Today was going to be a TKD day, but we decided to take off. Carrie had a long day (she drove to Richmond to meet her mom and patch a long-damaged bridge with a family friend). I had a long day (it's been a busy week), and I didn't get Shane home until after 5:30 PM (TKD starts at 6:05 PM).

We went to Wegmans for dinner and played video games. Carrie and Shane are both enamored with Ratchet and Clank.

I did some laundry and we called it a night.

Shane's Wrestling Season 2017-18

So it begins again. Carrie picked up Shane, so I didn't have to leave my practice early. I packed him up when I got home and we headed out to Day 1!

Shane's funny. The coach had everyone line up in front of him to show a move. Shane decided that he wanted to go up and stand next to the coach. He's not shy about raising his hand and volunteering explanations.

Shane looked good. He was more focused than last year. He wasn't perfect or near the best in the room, but I hardly expected that. He laughed instead of cried when he got tackled and attempted everything.

One thing I want to work on: Knowing when to focus on doing it fast and when to focus on doing it right.

There were several drills where the coach said, "This is NOT a race."

All Shane heard was "race." He was across the room shouting "First!" before most kids were halfway. The drive to compete and win is helpful in learning sports, so it's not a total wash (as long as that doesn't become the core of their being).

Shane paired up with his friend Ryan straight off. Friends are good! The boys are a similar physical match-up. Ryan (and his dad) are a little more serious whereas Shane.....well, Shane's not the best influence there.

Exhibit A: Getting ready to drill shots.

But after a brief discussion...

...the boys decide to drill their dance party moves instead.

They did do some work in the end. Ryan's shot is a lot better than Shane's. However, Shane did it!

This is something I always think about: How much should I push and instruct Shane at home? I know that I could work on his technique so that he would be much more successful at practice. Success tends to build confidence and lead to more fun and more success. However, I don't want to push Shane too much. We didn't get home until after 7:30 PM. That left Shane about an hour before bedtime. I believe kids need unstructured time and, honestly, I need breaks, too. 

If Shane were to say, "Daddy, can we practice?" I'd jump on it. He hasn't, so I haven't. I want to keep it fun rather than burn him out from the get go.

Anyway, it was a good looking start to the season. I told Shane he did great and didn't mention anything to work on. 

Monday Holidayover

Boy, it felt like a Monday. All the holiday drama backed up from the break looked for a release! It was the sort of day that left me feeling drained and frazzled.

A parent's job is not over with the day job, though. Shane missed TKD last week, so I decided to take him for a catch-up class.

What made it special was Carrie decided to come. She had a rough day too, and wanted to keep the family together.

Shane had his best class in a long time. He earned a black tip! I fully attribute it to Carrie and I both being there. Shane kept peeking over his shoulder to make sure we were watching.

We were on the road home when Carrie said, "Diet lemonade."

A right instead of a left led us to Chick-Fil-A to celebrate and end the day. Shane traded in his toy for ice cream, Carrie got her diet lemonade, and I got my spicy chicken sandwich.

Who knows what the rest of the week will hold? Monday ended well enough.

Coming Back to Life

It was a very quiet weekend. We never made it to Grandma and Grandpa's. Henry was out for half an hour Saturday, but that was the extent of other kids in the circle. I went out to buy a board game for Small Business Saturday and took Shane to Wegmans later, but that was about it. We spent the rest of the time indoors. Carrie beat Ratchet & Clank and Shane got a headache (from staring too long at the screen and/or forgetting to drink water because he was mesmerized). 

Sunday, I took Shane to church while Carrie napped with a low-grade fever. The weather was still pleasant, so I took Shane outside for a while. School starts up again Monday so we got productive. There was laundry, cleaning, and digging up Christmas decorations.

Shane got to end the night with a new game with Mommy.

It was two-player!

Their teamwork needs some work, though.

I'm ready for school and all of our other activities starting tomorrow.

Black Friday 2017

Now Carrie has a low-grade fever. I infected her. I had some restless energy and it translated to playing War with Shane. Carrie took over after half an hour and then segued into I Spy. 

Shane got a TV break when Carrie agreed to play a board game with me. I would have loved to have tried something new (Caverna!), but we ended up with One Deck Dungeon. 

Which turned out to be a big hit, by the way. I figured we'd play one round, but Carrie wanted three. I was tired after two, but Shane wanted to join in. He 'played' with a lot of shepherding. 

It was a more active day altogether. Carrie and Shane made banana and chocolate chip puff pastries for dinner.

I suggested we boot up the Playstation 3 and try Ratchet and Clank. Shane and I beat Shovel Knight yesterday, so I figured he should try something 3D.

Carrie got sucked in. I wanted her to turn it off when Shane went to bed, but she's still playing as I type this three hours later!

I may have awoken a monster.

It was a good day, though. I felt a lot better doing things and hopefully we'll see some people tomorrow.

Thanksgiving 2017

We never made it to Grandma and Grandpa's.

In my family, sickness rarely stopped us. With 7 people (and whoever else tagged along), there was a good chance someone would've felt off at any given moment. I remember I had an upper respiratory flu when we went to Early Thanksgiving in NC my 9th grade year (I lost 6 lbs that weekend and dropped from 109 to the 103 lbs weight class in wrestling so it stands out). If you were throwing up, it was better to throw up at home. If you could walk and weren't delirious, maybe you went with the group maybe not. If you didn't have at least 100.5 of fever, visible/grotesque sores or marks, a doctor's note, or unflushed vomit, you went to school (at least, that's how I was treated).

On the other hand, Carrie's side is much more hesitant. Carrie wanted me on quarantine since it was less than 24 hours since I had fever. She seems to get sick much easier than me, so that probably factors in. Her parents agreed. It's their house, so their rules. We stayed home.

After a morning of staying in the house, I felt restless, though. I wanted to DO something. Shane watched TV and played Shovel Knight all morning, so I offered him some choices. He chose a nature walk.

And so we went.

Carrie napped while we were out.

There were some boys playing football, but Shane did his own thing.

I heard the water babbling and pointed out a mini-waterfall.

That got Shane's attention. And he launched into song.

I tried to sneak an record some of Shane's singing. I didn't want him to change what he was doing or get a big head from being in the spotlight. Sorry that the video's sideways.

I really should bring a trash bag and gloves one of these days. The litter annoys me.

We were out for over an hour. Fall let us walk through some of the foliage behind the house since it thinned out. We came back to a sleeping Mommy.

Other than that we stayed around the house. Carrie cooked an amazing poor man's beef wellington, we ate, and took it easy. I had mixed feelings, because I wanted to see people but a day of rest is a good thing, too.

Enforced Rest Day

I got sick just in time for the holidays. I started to feel ill at work. It progressed and we stayed home Wednesday instead of going to Grandma and Grandpa's. It's not debilitating or the flu, but Grandma and Grandpa plan to travel in a couple of weeks. Carrie declared us on quarantine.

We did go to Costco to get groceries and switch my phone with Carrie's old one. It wore me out walking Shane all over while Carrie waited for an available phone tech.

Random Costco Note: I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but Costco seems to relax Shane's bowels. He poops half the time we go there. At least this time he didn't wait until we had a cart full of groceries.

However, he also sings from the toilet. I am dead serious. He will sing and beatbox and generally sound like he's having a party in a stall. I normally don't say anything unless he gets obnoxiously loud or hangs out forever. Honestly, I think he gets louder and louder hoping someone will say something. The men's room was near empty, so I think he was trying to get a reaction from the ladies today.

Winter Sports

Carrie picked up Shane and I spent the last day of break immersed in school sports. I showed up to clean the mats and run my middle school practice as usual. The high school team was supposed to go to a scrimmage, but their bus didn't leave until 5 PM. I ran a lighter, drill-heavy practice and most of the high school joined in. Coach W ran around getting stuff ready and collecting the kit.

After practice, I stepped next door to watch the last half of a basketball scrimmage. I had a student on one team and an ex-wrestler on the other. 

Then I scooted over to the wrestling scrimmage that was supposed to start at 6 PM.

I stayed until 8 PM. I was going to leave earlier but a wrestler who's been with me since day one hit the mat hard head first. He had to go through concussion protocol and was later diagnosed at the ER with a concussion. The team is young again this year. We had a handful of wrestlers come back for year two. The guy who Coach W hoped to make the captain opted to focus on school work instead.

Overall, the talent pool has increased, but (admittedly) it didn't have a high baseline to jump over. It will be interesting to see how they improve and handle themselves as the year goes on.

Where Has Carrie Been?

Last Tuesday, Carrie packed up and headed out on business.

She flew to Florida with Grandma to learn about and tour some cruise ships.

There were meetings, conferences, networking, and other work things, but I got at least one picture like this. 

Work hard. Play hard.

Carrie sent me this picture on Saturday. I thought it was from a hotel. Notice the sidewalk?

Nope. It was from a 17 deck cruise ship.

Saturday was the day that the agents got to inspect the boats. They were big.

Floating towns.

Carrie came back tired, but with some stories. She was fast asleep when Shane and I returned back from our weekend getaway.

There and Back Again

Continental breakfast.

9:30 service at our old church.

Shane got to play on the indoor fields. We were still in the computer system amazingly.

After church, we tried to surprise Jama.

I hadn't told her we were coming to town. Sadly, she wasn't there (which can happen with surprises).

We waited around for a little, but had to move on.

The Jeffers are around the corner, so I decided to drop in there next.

Gerry Tom Sawyer'd Shane into vacuuming.

The most amazing thing was Bill called shortly after we surprised Diane and Gerry. He was in town, too! Plans were hastily made for a pizza party. Bill talked to Igor. I recruited John. Diane called Dan and Shar.

I wasn't 100% sure what to do with Shane until everyone gathered. Then, another kid appeared.

Jackson lives two houses down from the Jeffers and is Shane's age. I actually knew his mom. She'd grown up in the same house when I used to visit the Jeffers.

The boys played outside until Jackson had to go in.

Gerry told us he was taking Oreo to the lake and asked if we wanted to come along.

While at the lake, we came across a baby squirrel.

It had been a windy night, so the little guy must have fallen from his nest. He hopped up to us from the woods.

I heard another baby squirrel squeaking up in a tree. Gerry spotted the nest and I scooped the little guy up in my hat and took him to the base of the tree.

I hope his parents came down to look for him. He tried to follow us out again. The online "What to do?" site I pulled up said to give the parents a couple of hours to pick him up. Otherwise, he was probably an orphan. With the nest and other squeaks I heard, I figured that all of the people and dogs present on the path probably kept the parents hidden.

I thought about this while Shane played on the playground.

We made it back in time for everyone else to start showing up!

It's been too long since we've all been together! Dan and Shar's wedding was the last time....and that had been the first time in years!

It was like old times trading stories and joking around.

I pointed at Dan and told Shane, "This one makes funny noises if you tackle him."

Turns out he's also very good at wrestling!

Shane and I left a little after 6 PM to give ourselves time to get home.....and do one last stop by Jama's!

Jama left me a voicemail earlier. She was sad to have missed us.

We almost missed her again. She wasn't in her room. Despondent, Shane complained he missed her the whole way back to the front desk. However, the front desk lady asked us who were looking for. When she found out it was Jama, she espoused, "You can't go yet! She'll be so sad! I know she's here!" She gave us Ed's room number and said to check there.

Which we did. We found her, too! She gave Shane a bunch of candy to hype him up for the car ride home.

We stayed until 7 PM, but then we had to get on the road.

We got home just before 9 PM and it was straight to bed for Shane. There were still two days of school before Thanksgiving break to go.