I was going to begin this post with a complaint about the weather. Then I realized that our recent run of swings between warm and cool are what spring is supposed to be like. Sure, it would be great if it was 60 for two weeks, then 65 for two weeks, and so on. Recent years have seemed a lot more like 40s until April 10 then it’s suddenly 85. The bouncing back-and-forth is normal, we’ve just grown accustomed to the abnormal.
The weather was good enough last week for me to spend two full days outside prepping the pool and pool area for the crew to come open it for the season tomorrow. Lots of power washing, scrubbing, scooping of leaves, etc. That water was cooooold when I I had to stick my hand in it! That’s how I spent pretty much the entire school day both Thursday and Friday. Thus my lack of content.
Over the weekend L’s team had another basketball tournament. They won all four games and took the championship. I must disclose that two of those games were against sixth grade teams. One of them was a 40-point win, the other was by 16. That second team was good, and nasty. The refs were calling no fouls so they were shoving and grabbing our girls the entire game. One of our girls even got hit in the face, a hit that drew blood, and the ref standing four feet away didn’t call a foul. Unbelievable. Fortunately our girls were poised and put them away.
That first sixth grade team, not sure why they were playing in a seventh grade tournament when they were not good. Losing by 40 doesn’t make you any better.
The championship game was a big, cathartic win for many of our girls. Our coach and five of his players have played against that group for years in both AAU and middle school ball. And they had never beat them. L lost to them twice this winter, so even she was 0-fer. We led pretty much the entire game, a couple times by 12, and held on late to win by three. Another set of medals for our girls.
Now I’ve buried the lede a bit: L did not play at all this weekend. Friday at recess she fell and cracked her tailbone on the ground. I guess she was jumping, landed on a ball, and fell straight backwards. She was in crazy pain Friday and could barely walk when she got home.
When she woke Saturday the pain wasn’t any better. Fortunately the first three games of the tournament were easy wins. They could have used her in the title game, as our guards really struggled to handle the other team’s pressure in the last five minutes. Having another solid ball handler would have kept the game from getting close, I bet.
As of this morning the pain still had not improved. There’s not much you can do, according to S. Whether it’s just a deep bone bruise or a fracture, the only thing L can do is rest, treat the pain, and wait for it to heal. She was super bummed to sit on the bench all weekend. She will miss the rest of kickball season. She will miss all her basketball practices at least this week and maybe next. This coming weekend is off for basketball, so that’s good.
What she is most worried about is our first out-of-town tournament in three weeks in Louisville. That seems right on the border of when she will be cleared to play again, assuming no setbacks. She really wants to be a part of that weekend.
In her abbreviated kickball season she went 16–20 with six home runs. The team had two easy wins then lost a tough game to eighth graders last week. They play that team again tomorrow and we hoped we could steal that to force a playoff. But with L out that’s probably not in the cards. Tonight they have to play with just eight players because another girl has a conflict. I don’t think this game will be a problem, but when you’re down two fielders dumb things can happen on defense.
So that’s a big, ol’ bummer. We just got her knees checked two weeks ago and the sports medicine doc confirmed her pain is just Osgood-Schlatter and there’s no need to worry about it. He also confirmed she has plenty of open space in her growth plates so she will continue to add some height for at least a little longer.
I’ll admit I was a little mad that she got hurt in recess. It’s one thing to get hurt in a game, although when she pitched in kickball I got nervous about her getting some kind of hand/finger injury. But recess?!?! Seriously?!?!
The dad of one of L’s friends made a good point when I admitted I was a little annoyed by the cause of her injury. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s hard when they get older and start playing sports more seriously to still let them be kids and just have fun sometimes.”
She better have been having fun in the moments before the cracked her ass on the ground.