D's Notebook

Tag: family (Page 7 of 80)

Weekend Notes

July 5, 2023 /

A lot to get caught up on after a long holiday weekend.

July 4th

Our standard family pool party for the Fourth of July. Almost all the locals were over for a daytime gathering. I smoked rather than grilled burgers for the first time and they turned out pretty good. All the young ones were well behaved, and it seems like both generations of sisters got along for the day, too.

We had neighbors over for drinks in the evening after the family had cleared out. No driveway fireworks this year.

Kid Hoops

Thursday was the last night of summer league games. CHS played a team they lost to by six earlier in June, and both coaches agreed to stack their rosters so that it was a true A game. Which got L excited.

She played pretty well in an eight-point loss. She hit a shot right before halftime to give us a 20–19 lead. But we were on the wrong side of a 9–2 run to start the third quarter that was pretty much the game. L was not on the court for any of that run. When she played, it was an even ballgame. When she sat, our offense bogged down and the defense was disconnected.

She scored six for the night on 3–4 shooting, and had a rebound, an assist, a steal, and a turnover.

She wasn’t super pleased with her play afterward, but I told her about my rough +/- numbers and how I saw her affect the game. There are definitely girls better than her on the team. There are girls with more potential or who are better than her in individual aspects of the game. But of the girls in the 20-ish player pool the JV teams pulled from this summer, no one organizes the game better than her.

Her first summer of high school hoops was a success. She fit in, she got more confident as the season progressed, was high scorer in at least two games, earned the coaches’ trust, and most importantly, she made some new, good friends. I’m excited to see how she improves once fall practice kicks off.

Not much rest for her. The travel team goes to St. Louis Friday for a tournament.

Over the weekend we went to the Y to shoot three times. She came up with a new workout that required her to make 300 shots. Mid-range, floaters, and 3’s. Off-the-catch and off-the-dribble. Lots of free throws. It took roughly an hour to get through it each day. I worked up a good sweat rebounding and passing.

Weather/Power

What a weird weather week.

We began with a terrible bout with the Canadian wild fire smoke. A couple times we had the worst air quality of any city in the US. Wednesday morning we were up to #2 in the world. Never say that Indianapolis can’t compete on the world stage!

It was much worse than our first run with the smoke a month ago. Two days the sky resembled the winter sky right before a big snow storm. Those days we couldn’t even see the sun, let alone take eerie pictures of its light refracted by the smoke. There was also a strange, metallic smell to the air.

Then Thursday a Derecho storm blew through with winds over 70 MPH. Our power went off at 3:57 and did not come back on until 3:00 Saturday afternoon. We filled up coolers with ice and transported our important items from the freezer to a relative’s home, but lost pretty much everything else from our fridges and freezers. S said it was time to replace a lot of our condiments anyway. Our house got pretty toasty each afternoon, but at least our basement remained cool. It was completely comfortable sleeping down there.

At one point nearly 80,000 people in Indianapolis were without power. I was obsessively checking the outage map and watched it slowly tick down a few thousand at a time, only for it to shoot back up after more, if less intense, storms came through both Friday night and Saturday morning.

When our power came back on there were still around 20,000 people in the city without power. I think most of them were back up and running by Sunday evening.

We had zero damage at our house. The neighbors to either side of us kept their power. It was just a thin row of 7–8 houses behind us that all come off the same line that got knocked out. Obviously the big downside of living in an area with tons of old trees and old power lines.

The big surprise was that our pool survived without turning bad. I was worried that sitting in the heat, covered, with zero circulation or filtration would be a recipe for stuff to grow quickly. It has turned cloudy in less time before. But Saturday night it was clear and tested out fine. I shocked it and ran the pump a little higher than normal and it was fine to swim in on Sunday.

In a related note, our refrigerators are very clean and organized.

Taylor Swift

I mentioned in Friday’s playlist that M was off to Cincy to watch Taylor Swift perform. She said the show was awesome.

M just got her tickets a week before the show. She received a text saying that some new tickets had been released. She was worried it was a scam, but noticed the message came from the same number her other Ticketmaster texts came from, so she decided to quickly buy two tickets and hope they were legit. She messaged some friends and they asked if she could try to get two more. The link indeed worked again so she bought four total tickets at face value 10 days before the show. She checked the secondary market and seats in her section were going for more than $2000. Pretty crazy. She was in the lower level in the Bengals stadium, with a great view of the main stage.

The grandparents of one of the friends that went with her live in Cincy, so the girls stayed at their house. The grandfather also met them near the stadium so M could park in a good spot hours before the show, took them to his house to drop their stuff, then back to the stadium. She’s living right these days.

Just a nice bonus this trip allowed her to miss out on about 24 hours of our power outage.

Football Recruiting

I will not address KU football recruiting until December.

Home States

Finally, not only did I just pass my 20th wedding anniversary and my 20th blogging anniversary, but also marked my 20th year living in Indiana. A few years ago I went through the exercise of figuring out how long I spent in each of the four states I lived in.

That was harder than you would think because of the college years, splitting time between two states. I decided to give Kansas ¾ credit for my first three years at KU, then full credit for the last couple after I gained residency and stayed there most of the summers. I’m not sure if that works out exactly right, but it seemed close and fair.

Anyway, my 20th year in Indiana means I’ve officially lived here longer than any other state. That still doesn’t sound right. My current tally looks like this:

Indiana 20 years
Missouri 19 years
Kansas 12 years
California 1 year

Kid Notes

June 14, 2023 /

There’s been a lot of talk about M here lately. Maybe too much talk. A few words about her sisters.

Middle Sister

C has had a pretty quiet summer break so far. She has filled M’s spot working for their aunt the chef on weekends a couple times. She will take that job over full time in August so this has been good preparation for that.

It’s good that she’s made a little money. Once school ended any reservations she had about driving disappeared. She’s been zipping all over the place. It helps that a couple of her closest friends can’t drive yet and she’s been running them around. Monday she had been gone for a couple hours and texted me asking if she could pick L up from summer school. So I guess she’s enjoying driving. I hope that means she’s a little more comfortable than she was back when I was riding with her in preparation for her driving test.

We’ve had to have the talk with her a couple times about “Hey, it’s great you’re spending time with your friends, but you might want to slow down on the trips to Target, the mall, or meals out because you’re blowing through your meager bank account balance pretty quickly.”

She has allegedly reached out to a couple places about working but they either haven’t called back or told her they aren’t hiring. Kid needs to find some way to make some cash, though.

(Not So) Baby Sister

L is a week-and-a-half into summer school and seems to be enjoying it. Friday when I picked her up and asked how her day went she said, “I made five new friends today!”

I asked her if she just walks around and talks to random people.

“Sure, what else am I going to do?”

I used to say she was destined to be class president because of how she brought people together. She might be on that track again.

Tuesday she told me three boys asked for her Snap account. Oh boy…

The basketball has gone pretty well. She’s fit right in at practices and is having fun.

Last Thursday she played in two JV games. She didn’t do a whole lot as the offense was pretty raged and the girls were clearly uncomfortable playing together. A couple looked like they had never played organized basketball before. L scored two in the first game, four in the second.

In that second game she played against two of her travel teammates, which was fun. Their travel coach was there to watch as his daughter was playing on a different court before us. Nice that CHS won that game by 25.

Then Tuesday night she and a few other JV girls got invited to play up in the varsity league. I was both excited and nervous for her. I didn’t want her getting killed by some 18-year-old woman. I wasn’t sure how much she would actually get to play, so told her just to have fun, listen to her coach, and pay attention to what the older guards were doing.

She played a fair amount and did better in those games than in the JV ones.

She looked comfortable and generally ran the right stuff, especially when she was on the court with varsity girls. When it was 4–5 freshmen together things got ugly. One of those youngin’ spells turned a 10 point lead into a six point loss. In their defense, the freshmen only gave up about half of a 19–4 run, and when the starters came back in they didn’t do anything to change the momentum.

She was 0–5 in the first game. Three of those misses were runners in traffic I could tell she rushed. I told her after the game I could tell she kind of went, “Oh crap, I’m wide open!” and tried to get rid of the ball before someone rotated to her. Another miss was a half-court heave at the first quarter buzzer that hit the front rim.

In game two she was 1–5, the only make a two with her foot on the 3-point line. She looked more aggressive in this game. She played several minutes with four starters and did not look overwhelmed.

CHS as a team maybe shot 20% for the night. I told her not to worry about her misses as long as she was taking good shots when she was open.

I don’t know that either team they played was super good, or that either of them had their full varsity rosters. But my biggest takeaway was that L just needs to get stronger. The times she struggled the most Tuesday were when older girls got a body on her. She struggled to handle that pressure, and it was obvious that she was a 14-year-old getting bodied by 16 and 17 year olds. Once she starts true strength training I expect that to be a huge help.

She’s always been smart on the court, and that will improve as she and her teammates get more familiar with what their coach wants them to do. There is still plenty of room for skill improvement, but her shooting is so much better than it was this time last year.

Keep improving the overall game and add some muscle and I’m feeling good about her high school basketball future.

(Late update: I did not mention how much she played. I would say she clocked roughly ten minutes in both games. These games are 10 minute quarters with a running clock.)

In related good news, she claims her knees haven’t hurt for nearly three weeks. I was very worried about her being on the court three straight days this summer. So far, at least, it seems like the knee pain that has plagued her for over two and a half years has receded. Fingers crossed that doesn’t mean she is completely done growing. I’d love for her to add another inch or two before she’s done.

Other than being tired, she was raring to go when I dropped her off at 5:41 for this morning’s workouts.

Mr. Scorekeeper

As I have done so many times over the years for CYO sports, it seems I have become the official scorekeeper for the summer league team. Which I don’t mind. It keeps me calmer, lets me listen to the coaches, and helps me to learn who all the CHS girls are. As a bonus if we have any crazy parents (I haven’t figured that out yet, but it seems inevitable) it keeps me away from them.

This probably makes me a bad person, but it drives me a little nuts how no other parents have come over and said, “Since you did the first game, can I do the second one?” It was the same story with L’s winter league team through CHS. I would do game one then hope to sit in the stands for game two, only for L to run over and ask if I could run the clock again. In four months of games, no other parent ever volunteered to split duties with me.

If it was more in my personality type, and I wasn’t a freshman parent, I would send a message out to all the parents with a signup sheet for the rest of the summer.

Instead I’ll just be smug that I’m always the one checking in with the coaches to see if I can handle the book for them.

Weekend Notes: Grad Party SZN

June 13, 2023 /

Quick Blog Note

You may have noticed that I updated the header image of the site. I actually did a little bit of Dicking Around™ with the entire site over the weekend. I installed a couple new themes and played around with them for about five minutes before switching back to the one I’ve been using for five years. I was content to swap in the new image, stolen from one of the themes I sampled, and call it a night.

I’m sure my readers will appreciate that, and that I’m not returning to the “completely redesign and/or move the blog to a new platform every year” cadence I was on back in the day. I’m pleased everything has worked well since my last host move, design update.

Final Grad Party

M had her big open house with two buddies on Sunday. After one of the driest springs in Indy history, it decided to pour much of the day. Which sucked in a lot of ways. It also made me thankful that we told M over a year ago if she wanted a big party she needed to either find a friend to host, or a friend who had a neighborhood clubhouse we could borrow for the day.

Our original plan was to do the clubhouse option. We even had a deposit down. But for some reason I’ve chosen to forget, that fell through. One of the other families volunteered to host everyone, which was a very nice thing to do. I think that mom is still recovering from a bunch of kids cramming into her house when the third downpour of the day rolled in during the last half hour of the open house. It was very packed and very loud for about 45 minutes. I barely had a voice Monday. It was like going to bars again!

Things in general went well. The food was great. The cops never showed up. I don’t think any of the neighbors complained. Us dads all got totally soaked in the setup process. I made the mistake of running the 10 feet from the gas station door to the ice machine and then to my car without an umbrella during the heaviest rain of the day. I might as well have jumped in the pool. Fortunately we had changes of clothes, although I don’t think I completely dried out until Monday morning.

We waaaay overestimated how much both food and drink we needed. We were left with at least four coolers that were totally full of various beverages, alcoholic and otherwise. Someone is going to have to host another party, this time just for adults.

It was fun seeing a lot of parents we don’t see often. Chances are we may never see some of these folks again as our kids go different directions.

The girls seemed to have fun. Other than the rain the only bummer of the day was M getting a little bitchy with S. Not the best time to do that, after your mom has busted her ass for weeks to make the party everything you wanted it to be. Oh well, kids gonna kid I guess.

There are just a scattering of parties left. Two of M’s good friends have one this coming weekend, and I think she may pop into a couple more. Then graduation season will finally be over.

Now S and I have two years to rest up until C’s class goes through the process. She needs to start planting the mental seed with one of her buddies so they volunteer to host.

One completely unrelated note from M’s party. Our small spring break group of parents was huddled in conversation, enjoying drinks. Several of us had 3 Floyd’s Gumballhead, a hoppy wheat beer. One of the dad’s commented that he liked it but, “I like that, what is it, 90 Acre? 80 Acre? better.”

This made me very happy, and we had like a 10 minute conversation about Boulevard beers, why they stopped making 80 Acre, how they changed their distribution a few years back, and how I was bullied by that girl at the bar in KC last year for suggesting that Boulevard was local.[1]

For the record Gumballhead and 80 Acre are indeed very close in taste. I, too, preferred 80 Acre, but am happy to drink a very good, similar beer made here in Indiana. Glad to find another aficionado.

Housing Assignment

M just got her housing assignment at UC this morning. She will live in the old school, kind of crappy building. She’s bummed about it, but I am laughing. It will be good for her to have to deal with a communal bathroom. Builds character. Plus someone cleans it for her. S lived in one like it. Hell, I did it for two years! She didn’t even list this dorm in her options, but I told her that’s the breaks of being a freshmen. All the older kids staying in dorms got first dibs and there were only so many spots left for the newbies.

She did get the roommate she had requested, and they will have a room to themselves, which is kind of cool. As long as they get along as well living together as they have through their online interactions and one meeting over the past four months.

  1. She derisively told me that Boulevard “isn’t local anymore” when I asked the bartender for something local.  ↩

Weekend Notes

June 5, 2023 /

We’ve hit a cycle of boom-bust weekends that should extend at least a couple more weeks.

This was one of the bust weekends. At least for four of us.

M had parties all weekend, I believe she had 12 she could have attended from Friday through Sunday. We met her at one of her buddy’s on Sunday and she looked totally wiped out. So naturally we – meaning S and I and other parents who have known M for years – made fun of her for being so tired from just having fun. We suggested she either go home and go to bed, or have a Diet Coke, eat something, and stop moping around.

She did not take this advice well. So we just laughed at her and enjoyed talking to the people who wanted to have fun.

Poor girl has one more week of parties to get through. Hopefully she survives.

S and I are only hitting up the families we know well and/or have spent a lot of time with over the years. We hit one each day. The Saturday party was fun because it was for a middle school classmate who went to a different high school. So we got to see some parents we haven’t seen in four years, other than on Facebook.

Sunday evening I took C and L to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse. All the thumbs up. I believe I’ve said this every time I’ve watched a Spider-Man movie since the latest iterations started, but I’m not a big Marvel/DC/superhero movie guy at all. There’s something about the Spidey movies that always works for me, though. And the Miles Morales universe ones are especially excellent. They are some of the most stunning visual entertainment I’ve ever seen. And the stories aren’t bad, either. I also love how these movies don’t take themselves too seriously. There are lots of jokes that poke fun at comic-based stories or the idea of a multiverse.

SPOILER ALERT

I hadn’t read anything about the new movie before we saw it, or watched the first Miles Morales movie again to refresh my memory. All I knew was that it was getting great reviews. So I was floored when the final scene closed and the screen displayed “To Be Continued…” I mean, I figured this wouldn’t be the last Miles Morales movie. But I had no clue this one was going to end in a proper cliffhanger. I was looking at my watch the last ten minutes thinking, “How the hell are they going to wrap this up?” I guess they will wrap things up in the next movie!

END SPOILER ALERT

NBA

I haven’t written a thing about the NBA playoffs. Last fall I flooded my podcast app with a bunch of NBA pods and generally listen to one or two each day, depending on my schedule. However, once Tyrese Haliburton got hurt and the Big 12 picked up its conference pace in January, I didn’t watch a ton of pro ball until the playoffs started.

This has been an entertaining playoff season. The Nuggets are so fun to watch, with such good balance and one of the low-key most entertaining players of all time in Nikola Jokic. And the Heat are just so damn relentless that they force you to admire their play, especially Jimmy Butler with his uncanny ability to morph into one of the five best players in the world once the playoffs begin.

I haven’t watched all of every playoff game, but most nights I turn the TV on around 9:00 and pick up whatever game is on. Back when there were still multiple series going on, I would also watch the first half of the late game before heading to bed.

If all this sticks to me through the summer, I may have to write more consistently about the NBA next year. Especially if the Pacers make a good draft pick/trade and take another leap in the ’23–24 season.

Summer School

L started summer school today. She’s taking two classes – PE and health – as that clears her to take strength training in the fall. So she basically has a regular school day. I dropped her off at 8:00 this morning and will pick her up at 3:30. On Tuesdays she will have basketball workouts for two hours after school, on Wednesdays for two hours before school. They will likely play games on Thursday nights.

Kid is going to be tired for the next month.

Grad Night, Part 2

May 31, 2023 /

We had our final official event at St P’s last night: the graduation of L’s 8th grade class.

We got a new priest a little over a year ago after our long-time, very popular priest retired. The new guy has received a decidedly mixed reaction. As I’m not Catholic I won’t get into the details.

That said, homie knocked out the Mass in 40 minutes, which I fully support.

The graduation ceremony afterward went well. It was nice to have it be “normal,” since C’s in the spring of 2021 featured limited guests, masks, and families spread out with pews between them.

Neither M nor C won any awards at their middle school graduations. I had a feeling L might get one this year. It helps that her class is tiny. But she’s also been a straight A student and consistently gets the little awards and acknowledgments teachers hand out during the year.

She was nominated for four awards that we know of.[1] She won one, and it was a good one: the Holy Cross Values award for Cathedral that includes a $500 scholarship and automatic entry into class leadership at CHS next year. Pretty, pretty good.

That was one of the awards where they did not read off the nominees. The grads were sitting in their own section and we had a direct view of her. I had a decent idea she was going to win this one, so got to see the surprise and delight on her face when the principal called her name. She was beaming when she walked up to receive it.

So that was pretty cool.

There is always a brief reception for families before the adults leave and the kids have their final dance together. Several of us parents went to a bar to have a few drinks during the dance. I cracked up that, for most of our 90 minutes at the bar, the moms were all on one side of the room and the dads on the other. Some things never change…

L went to a friend’s house to hang out for awhile afterward. When I picked her up at midnight she said the dance was fun, although nobody was dancing. She was wearing casual clothes her friend had given her after they got to her house because, “I was tearing it up on the dance floor to try to get other people to dance and got my dress all sweaty.” Apparently there was twerking involved.

Just because the class of 2023 had graduated didn’t mean she stopped being a leader.

  1. Not sure why, but for some reason they read off the nominees for some awards and not others.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

May 30, 2023 /

It was a very busy, extra long, extra special holiday weekend. Let’s get into the details.

Thursday

L’s next-to-last day of middle school. She begged us to host the annual 8th grade pool party. After weeks of badgering us we relented. Not sure I would have said yes if her class was bigger, but only 28 kids seemed manageable.

Everyone was well-behaved, they all got picked up on time, and I felt bad for secretly hoping it would storm and cancel the event.[1]

Afterward six of her closest girlfriends spent the night. I think they were all wiped out from swimming so crashed pretty early.

S and I also went to the open house for one of M’s closest friends that evening.

Friday

Our family’s last day at St P’s! After 13 years we are done. Looking forward to stopping that monthly contribution. Not that that balances out college tuition.

I was shocked that L and her sleepover pals were all awake and dressed when I got up at 6:45. I fully expected to need to send S down to get the girls moving.

L’s last day went well. The 8th graders always have a walkout about 15 minutes before school ends. The rest of the students line the hallways, the 8th graders stroll through them to cheers and hugs, and then everyone stands around hugging and crying until it’s time to go.

Way less tears in L’s class than either of her sisters’ classes. Way less standing around and hugging. As I recall from both M’s and C’s classes, the school administrators are always gently pushing people to their cars when it is time for the gates to open. Not L’s class, or at least L. She stood around for a few minutes, then looked at me and said, “OK, let’s go.”

Easiest last day ever!

They graduate tonight (Tuesday).

Friday was also C’s last day of the year. She just had to turn a couple projects in before CHS dismissed at 12:20. She brought some girls home and had a big sleepover of her own.

That evening S, M, and I went to the folks hosting M’s big, three-girl open house in a few weeks for dinner and planning.

Yes, if you’re paying close attention, we let both L and C have a bunch of girls over and left the house, with only another sister to keep an eye on them. As far as we know there were no parties or boys invited over in our absence.

Saturday

A relatively quiet day, although this was day one of prep for our family/close friends open house for M on Monday.

Sunday

This is when the stress really kicked in for party prep. An entire day of cleaning, organizing, testing different strategies for how to display her stuff, shopping, etc.

L and I also ran over to the YMCA so she could get some shots up. Something was wrong with my back which made rebounding and getting a hand up in her face very difficult. That night I was in pretty intense pain. Normally I know when I do something to my back and that pain is coming. This time I had no memory of doing anything to it, which is a little concerning. The pain is finally fading Tuesday morning.

Also…race day! While doing party prep around the house we did the Indy resident tradition of listening to the race on the radio. Sounded like it was a good one. I fell asleep watching the replay Sunday night and haven’t gone back yet to watch the final 15 laps, which were some of the craziest I can recall in an Indy 500.

Monday

Open House day had finally arrived. Which meant the stress went to its highest possible level. We were still getting things organized when people started arriving, which is always fun.[2] My sister-in-law made an amazing grazing table for the main food feature.

Again this was mostly family and close friends, where the bigger party in a a couple weeks will be more about M’s friends. The nephews all got to swim. It was very warm, pushing hot, but still a nice day to be outside.

It was good to break M’s celebration into two groups. We have a big house with a big yard, but it doesn’t really feel setup for having 100-ish people wandering around. I think we had around 50 people over Sunday, but never more than 30–35 at a time. Which seemed perfect for getting to at least say hello and have a quick conversation with everyone. I also didn’t have to worry about people falling into the pool because so many people were milling about.

Oh, a story about pools at grad parties. The kid M went to prom with had his party last week. S and I did not go since we only casually know the parents. Day of their party they opened their pool to be greeted by green water. So they poured 16 gallons of pool shock into it in hopes of killing off whatever was polluting it.[3] That worked; the water was blue by party time. But also highly toxic. The parents spent all night telling people “DO NOT GET IN THE WATER!” Which was a pain because there were a ton of people there, and they were crowded very close to the pool.

We had blue, swimmable water for our party, thank goodness. I definitely watched my chemical levels a little closer than normal and ran the pump a little higher than normal in advance of our gathering.

M was pleased with how everything went, which is kind of the key.

And now it is summer. M has been out trying to find a job to supplement her weekend cooking gig. C really needs to get off her ass and find one soon if she wants to avoid the wrath of her parents. L has a couple days off before summer school orientation Friday, then begins classes next Monday. She is taking health and gym, so will be on campus all day. She also has high school basketball workouts on Tuesday afternoons and Wednesday mornings, and will likely be playing in games on Thursday nights. Kid is going to be tired for the next four weeks.

  1. Because of the holiday weekend and people leaving town, then graduation on Tuesday, we had one day to try to get the party in.  ↩
  2. They were arriving on time, we were just way behind schedule.  ↩
  3. For you non-pool owners, 16 gallons of liquid chlorinator is A LOT. I’ve never poured more than four gallons in at once, although I did put eight gallons in over the course of a day when we had cloudy water once.  ↩

Graduation Weekend Notes

May 22, 2023 /

Grad Week

We officially have a high school graduate! The week leading up to Sunday’s graduation ceremony was jam-packed for M.

Her final day of school was last Monday. They were supposed to go in for first period Tuesday but she (and most of her classmates) opted to skip that.[1] She had little activities each day but Thursday was when things really got cranking. That morning she met with a group of girls on campus to take pictures. One of her middle school friends, who graduated from a rival school this weekend, took the photos and they turned out amazing. If you are a Facebook friend these are the pics of the group in caps and gowns around the school sign, etc.

Afterward she changed clothes and helped the other class officers paint their spot on the school wall. That evening she attended her first grad party, then slept over with a group of girls who were all on the crew to help make breakfast for Senior Sunrise.

She was up at like 5:30 Friday to get to campus and setup the breakfast. They had a beautiful morning for their last time together on the Hill, then meandered over to the gym for the Irish 500, the annual tricycle race between classes. There was some controversy this year as a team of sophomores, featuring one of C’s best friends, won for the second-straight year. The seniors claimed they cheated but C was insistent that she had video that disproved the senior’s argument. Who knew a tricycle race could be filled with so much drama?!?!

That night was the baccalaureate mass. Because of the timing we were not very environmentally friendly as a family and had to take three cars. I felt a little bad about that, even more so since parking is such a pain on campus.

The class president gave a very good speech which was a bonus. In the midst of the ceremony C looked at me and said, “Is that rain?” referring to the background noise. At an appropriate moment I slipped my phone out to check the radar and, sure enough, there was a big, fat red storm cell sitting right on top of CHS. It had not passed when the mass was over and we had to run to our cars while getting absolutely soaked. And I mean soaked. My clothes were plastered to my body. Thank goodness it wasn’t graduation day!

We had to laugh when the kids walked in for the mass. They were in alphabetical order. There was a sequence that went from Xavier Booker (6’11”) to M’s ex-boyfriend (5’7”). That just didn’t look right. We were also thankful that the ex-boyfriend comes before his twin sister in the lineup, otherwise he and M would have walked and sat next to each other. They are on decent terms but that still would have been awkward.

When we got home M was in tears. She said she was tired, stressed, and sad. I told her it was 100% acceptable to be sad, but there was no reason to be stressed. This was going to be one of the best weekends of her life and she needed to take a deep breath and enjoy it. I think it was more the lack of sleep than anything else, because once she got a good night of rest, she was fine the rest of the weekend.

Saturday her best friend’s grandmother took a group out for lunch and then she had up to six parties to attend. She ended up only going to four, but that was still a pretty full day.

Sunday was the big day. CHS’ graduation is outside at their baseball complex east of the city. An outdoor event in Indianapolis in May? Holy taking a chance! I guess they haven’t learned from over a hundred years of Indy 500s, where the biggest drama of race day is often whether that storm developing over Terre Haute is going to make it to Speedway before the race ends.

We lucked out, though. It was bright and sunny and in the low 70s. The sun felt a lot warmer than 70, and we were all very hot. Plus we roasted in the sun, sunburns for all. But at least there was no rain or it wasn’t like 57 and windy.

The ceremony went well. M gave the opening prayer. One of her classmates was supposed to follow her by offering the prayer in Spanish. Apparently the band didn’t get the memo as they started playing immediately after M finished. It was hilarious watching her whip her head around trying to figure out what to do. We went back and watched the recording of the event that night. M said the school president told them just to wait for the band to finish and then give the Spanish prayer. After she got that message she just glared at the band. I found her indignation delightful, and was glad she was sticking up for her classmate.

Anyway, the whole event took about two hours. There were a few too many speeches, especially since we had speeches on Friday. There are 240ish kids in her class and it took about 45 minutes to call their names to walk the stage. I talked to the parents of some of L’s basketball teammates Saturday about their ceremonies at the big, suburban, Hamilton County schools. Their ceremonies often take 3–4 hours. That sounds fun.

One highlight from the ceremony was learning that M’s class destroyed the school records for both total scholarship dollars offered and, since they are a smaller class, scholarship dollars per student. She said when the school president announced that, the grads were all laughing that it was thanks to Booker and all his offers. I noticed he only listed about 10 schools, and a football player who is going to Kentucky did not list a couple schools I know he had official offers from, so their class total could have been even higher. Another kid, who is just a normal dude, had like a quarter page of scholarships listed. Good for him!

L took her camera and got some very good pictures. When going through them I laughed because she not only snapped M and her friends as they walked right behind us, but also Booker and her favorite assistant coach from the girls program.

After the ceremony we came home and had an Italian takeout dinner that was a combination celebration for graduation and C’s birthday last week with S’s dad and stepmom. Then M opened the time capsule made back in first grade. It was fun reading all the things she wrote about herself back then. My only kind of emotional moment of the week was when she read the letter I wrote to her and then I read the letter she wrote about me being her hero. The best stuff.

That was our graduation weekend. M will have two graduation parties in the coming weeks. On Memorial Day we are hosting a smaller one for just family and close friends. Then in June she and two of her best friends will have a mutual party at one of their homes. She has about 1000 parties scattered around those. I think S and I are only going to a couple of those, so our calendars are much less packed than M’s.

Driving

With M home, C went straight from getting her license to driving to school most days. Which means I’m back to how I was when M started driving on her own: checking my phone every 30 seconds until I’m sure C made it to CHS safely, or that she is getting home safely after school. Glad she got her license at the end of the academic year so I’ll have the summer to get more comfortable mentally with her being out on her own.

Kid Hoops

L’s team had a tournament this weekend, although she only played on Saturday. They won those two games by 29 and 45. Even the “close” one was never really close and we had running clocks for the entire second half of each.

L didn’t score much – four and two points respectively – but did a decent job passing and playing defense. The team we beat by 45 lost to us by 40 a month ago. The mom who ran the clock next to me said they came from Ohio. I wanted to ask her if it was worth driving two hours to keep getting crushed, but kept that question in my head.

In the bracket games Sunday our girls won by 43 and then played our program’s highest level sixth grade team for the championship. That team has a girl who can literally look me in the eyes. All she does is block shots and take 3’s. They have another girl who is pushing six-feet who is mostly an outside player, too. They’ve won two different “world championship” tournaments, so they are a really good team.

Our girls beat them 45–43 in overtime. Texting with our coach after it sounds like we controlled the entire game then got sloppy at the end to let it get to overtime. But after losing by a single point in overtime twice this season, the girls finally closed one out. I mean, to took paying sixth graders to do it. But these are “world champions,” so don’t knock it too much.

That was our last tournament of the spring. We take the holiday weekend off then the girls will all funnel out to their high school programs for June. We will reconvene after July 4 for three out-of-town tournaments and then be done with this iteration of the team. In Indiana only three girls from a high school can play on the same AAU team. As we have four girls who will go to the same high school, our team will need to be split up.

The good news for L is the CHS head coach also coaches with her AAU program, so I think she’ll be able to stay with her current travel coach for at least one more year. It will just not be with all the same girls.

  1. Their actual senior skip day was May 12. She and three of her friends spent the day at the outlet mall about an hour away.  ↩

Weekend Notes

May 8, 2023 /

This weekend was certainly slower than the previous one. Doesn’t mean we didn’t pack a few things into it, one of them rather momentous.

On the Road

The family checked off another big milestone when C passed her driver’s test and got her license on Saturday.

It has been a bit of a struggle with her; she was first eligible to get her license the week of Thanksgiving but wasn’t close to either being ready or having enough hours behind the wheel then. She was very anxious about the entire process and it was a chore to get her into the car on a regular basis. Where M was one of those kids who couldn’t wait to get her license, C was part of that cohort that saw no great motivation to get hers ASAP.

As recently as January I was worried that she would ever get it. She wasn’t driving very often, and when she did wasn’t making much progress in her skills. In March something clicked and it all came together, her ability improving quite a bit and those normal, new driver mistakes getting fewer and fewer. She still made me very nervous, or even yell at her, at least once per drive. The other moments were much better, though.

It is tough to grab a weekend test time around here and last weekend was the first chance to get one on the books once we thought she was ready. On the way to her test some other young driver pulled right in front of her in a roundabout. She braked correctly but just sat there. I reached over and punched the horn so the kid knew about his mistake. “Use your horn if you need to, babe.”

When we got to the BMV the test guy was walking out with a lady. They were gone for about half an hour, so C had an idea of how long the test would take. After she left I nervously tried to read, without much success. I checked her location every few minutes to see where they were. After only about 15 minutes I noticed they were only a few blocks away. As they passed the BMV I said a silent prayer, “Please keep going. Please keep going.” But they turned back into the lot.

Damn. That seemed way too quick and I wondered if she had done one of the automatic fail errors. When she walked back in she had a blank look on her face that I couldn’t read. The tester waved me over to his station and when I got there she whispered, “I don’t think I made any mistakes but he didn’t say anything.”

Seconds later he said, “Well, you passed.” Come on, dude, we don’t need to drag it out. Tell the kid how they did right away!

The only bummer was C didn’t realize that she would be taking a new picture and freaked out a little because she wasn’t prepped for one. The nice lady helping us with that part of the process told her she can come back and amend her license with a new picture down the road. I guess that means we’ll be paying for another license but since she thinks she looks like a criminal in the picture she took Saturday I guess that’s worth it.

We immediately violated all the rules by letting her drive a friend to dinner Saturday. I was, again, nervously tracking her location but she made it there and back fine.

Two teen drivers in the house now. Which means the first fight about who gets to use the car isn’t too far down the road.

Kid Hoops

A 1–2 weekend for L’s team, and we were fortunate to get that win.

In our first game we trailed by 14 early and were getting pummeled by their big girl. This girl was ginormous. I’m guessing 6’3”+ and very wide. She wasn’t super athletic but had a bunch of old-school post moves, long arms that helped her get any rebound, and she was blocking every shot in the lane. I know she scored 24. I’m guessing she was very close to a triple double with blocks.

Our girls made a run early in the second half to make it a game and it bounced between a 2–6 point deficit most of the half. We hit a couple threes and took a four point lead late. That got down to one with about 40 seconds left, us inbounding at half court.

One of the super annoying things about travel basketball is that the rules are never the same tournament-to-tournament. Some weeks you play 14 minute halves, others 16. Occasionally 20 minutes with a running clock. Some weeks it takes five fouls to foul out, others six.

This week you didn’t start shooting free throws until there were 10 team fouls. The other team only had six at this point. Despite our struggles with their pressure, their coach decided to start fouling intentionally. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Inbound, foul. Four straight times until we went to the line.

This was super dumb. I can’t stress this enough. One of the worst coaching gaffes I’ve seen.

On three of those inbound passes we almost turned it over. If the coach had told them to trap first and then foul, they likely would have been able to get a steal. On one play I guarantee the ref would have called our girl for traveling but since the coach was screaming at him to call the foul he did. She was so worried about getting us to the line that she didn’t give her team a chance to play defense. If they get a stop they could go down, run a good play for their big girl, probably get a basket or put her at the line (she was 4–5 from the line), and then force us to get a shot up.

Oh, she only had six players. One of them fouled out in this sequence.

When we finally went to the line we missed – of course, we shot like 25% from the line for the weekend – but we got a stop and steal on the other end, then they fouled us again. Which was that player’s sixth foul. They played the last 30 seconds of the game with four players because their coach was super dumb.

We again missed the free throw but got the rebound, scored to go up three, and survived a last-gasp three to get the win.

Thank you, Ohio coach!

We got smoked by some very athletic girls from Wisconsin in pool game two. They led by 24 at one point, we got it down to seven late, but lost by 14.

Then in our bracket game we lost by 10. Again, we trailed by 20 by whittled it down to four. Our girls loved digging holes and then trying to get out of them.

A pretty crappy weekend for L. She hit a 3 right before the halftime buzzer of the first game – that’s her thing now – but rolled her bad ankle about 30 seconds into the second half and didn’t play again. She rolled it on her own, didn’t trip over anyone else or do it as a result of contact. Even with the light brace she was wearing she immediately went down and hobbled off at the next dead ball.

Not a lot of swelling but it is very sore and now we have to figure out how long to hold her out to give it a chance to heal. She wanted to play Sunday but I told her if she rolled it again, she was not only putting the next two weekends in doubt, but would put all her June activities with CHS in jeopardy.

We tried to get her a Steph Curry-approved brace Sunday, but the one we brought home seems defective so I have to return it and find another. We’re also going to keep her in a light brace at all times and do some home rehab once her pain level goes down. I badly sprained my right ankle my sophomore year of high school and it was never the same. I hope she hasn’t inherited my bad ankles along with my bad eyes.

Kid Soccer

I believe I mentioned that L signed up to play on the St P’s soccer team, which is an eighth grade tradition. Between her previous ankle issues, the weather, and basketball conflicts, she was only able to play in two games.

In the first she had one chance to score but took a terrible shot – with the outside of her right foot from the left side – from way too far away from the goal. A dad near me asked, jokingly, “What kind of shot was that?”

“A shot by a kid that hasn’t played soccer in four years,” was my response.

In their final game last week she had another good chance to score, took a great shot from the right side…and one of her teammates ran in the way of it and blocked it for the defense. I’m not sure that it had a chance to go in but it would have made it on-goal.

After the game we were parked by the St O coach and she came over and asked L, “Do you play travel? You’re a really good player.” That pumped up her ego more. She seriously told me two weeks ago she thought she could make the CHS team. I laughed at her and said, “Maybe if you quit basketball and play soccer all summer.” Then I reminded her that she told me her team was trash (it was) and not to get too excited about dominating practice.

Oh well, she had fun playing one more time even if she wasn’t the same player she was back when soccer was her thing.

Pool Season

We finally shook that cold spell and the girls were in the pool a couple times over the weekend. M had friends over Friday night and two of the local nephews took advantage of it on Sunday. I hate to jinx it but if it stays as warm as the next 10 days look, we might be able to keep the heater off except for that quick boost right before the weekends when people are coming over.

Now it will probably be in the 30s next week…

Weekend Notes

May 1, 2023 /

A big weekend full of big events.

Prom

The big event of the weekend was M’s final CHS prom. It was quite the stressful week leading up to the dance. There was way more drama in her friend group this year than last.

There was one breakup last week, another of her friends is dumping her boyfriend this week, and another girl has been a bit of a wank which has caused some rifts in their core group. Not all of her friends were originally invited to the same pre-party, which caused some more static. And then one kid invited the entire class – 220-some kids – to his house for an afterparty. He does not have a huge lake house with lots of property like the kid who hosted last year, so everyone just assumed it was going to be a disaster and not last very long before the cops showed up.

Oh, and the weather forecast sucked for Saturday.

Throw in all the normal pre-prom stresses, and M was wound pretty tight last week. On Wednesday she let out a big sigh and told us she just wanted it to all be over. We told her to do her best to relax, to control the things she could control, and focus on having the best time she possible.

You know what? Almost everything turned out just fine Saturday.

It was sunny and 75 when her three friends who were getting ready at our house arrived. We had the pool open, a few of our trees had some really good color, and it looked like we might get some great pictures. They got ready, gathered, I snapped two photos, and just before the third there was a big crack of thunder and rain started falling. I got a great shot of their faces all breaking when they heard the thunder.

We hustled them under the porch roof and got more pics, then they left for the pre-party, with us shortly behind. The hosts were gracious enough to open the party up to just about everyone so there were plenty of chances for more pics. In the 30 minutes between leaving our house and S and I getting there, it rained, hailed, and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. Suddenly it was a wet, chilly night. Although with so many people crowded together it wasn’t that bad. The kids would have been roasting had it still been sunny and in the 70s.

We took more pics then left for dinner with friends. All of us monitored our kids’ locations closely until they arrived at the Children’s Museum for the dance. Then we relaxed a bit. Or at least until we got home, when it came time to monitor their after-the-dance activities.

M was where she was supposed to be when she was supposed to be there all night. The after party actually went well. I drifted in-and-out of sleep on the couch until 2:00 when I saw she was at her friend’s house where she was spending the night.

I didn’t see her until Sunday afternoon. She said it was a good night. Some drama in the evening but not as much as she had feared. She went with a friend and they had fun. One of her buddies who she had a little static with last week pulled her aside and thanked her for being honest with her, and they have a picture together with big smiles, so that worked out.

I guess it is easier to have fun when expectations are low, but it seemed like everything turned out about as well as it could have.

Kid Hoops

After a week off L’s team was back to tournament play with morning games both days about 30 minutes east of Indy.

Saturday we split two, losing by 22 and winning by 32. We were only down four in the first game with 2:00 left in the first half before giving up a 12–0 run. The lead quickly surpassed 20 in the second half and we had a running clock for the rest of the game. These girls were good: long, athletic, and could shoot. Pretty much the kind of team we always lose to. They hit a ton of 3’s; at least seven in the first half alone. We missed at least 10 free throws which could have at least made it respectable. We heard this team had lost by 10 to the girls that beat us twice two weeks ago.

L was solid in both games, scoring 6 and 8 and playing really good D in game two.

Sunday we were back at 8:00 AM for bracket play. We trailed 12–8 about four minutes into our semifinal. This team was giving us fits on defense but didn’t seem to have much on offense. After we hit a 3 to take the lead we finished the half on a 14–2 run and had a running clock most of the second half. L scored six but was 0–3 from the line. I believe she went 2–7 from the line for the weekend, the only makes coming when she hit 2–3 after getting fouled on a 3 attempt.

Onto the title game against the team that beat us Saturday. Just like the tournament two weeks ago, the rematch was a much better game.

Our girls game out super fired up and led 12–8 before giving up a 12–0 run. We were down 8 at halftime, but were limiting their three-point looks. L was face-guarding their best shooter – who hit six on us Saturday – and she didn’t take a 3 in the first half.

We slowly clawed back in the second half and briefly took a one-point lead at 36–35, only to give up an 11–2 run.

Again we clawed back. We were getting great, open looks from 3 and decent looks inside but kept missing. Yet we chipped away.

With under a minute left, down two, L got the ball on the left wing and didn’t hesitate, draining a three to give us the lead. But we gave up four-straight points and were down three with 2.9 seconds left, inbounding under the far basket. Our coach called a timeout to set something up. Which seemed a little hopeless since we had struggled against their pressure and surely they would press, right?

The girl taking the inbound faked a short pass, L cut from across the court at the midcourt stripe, the inbounder tossed a perfect pass just over the D, L caught it, took a dribble, threw up a running 3…and it banked in! Pandemonium! Poor kid thought she won the game, not tied it, and was a little bummed when she realized we were going to overtime. She lost her shit for a minute.

I’m not a videoing parent, and took some grief from the others when I didn’t capture it. Lucky one of our players brought a sister and her friend, and they did video it. I tried to include it here but can’t get it to embed properly. Trust me, it was fun!

Also worth noting she was supposed to pass to the girl in the corner, but decided not to.

In OT we were down two, with the ball, and time running out. One of our girls lost the ball while driving, the girl who threw the inbounds pass to Lia grabbed it and tossed it up. It rattled in just as the buzzer sounded. Double OT!

Despite being a championship game, tournament rules dictated the second OT be sudden death. We lost the tip, but held on D and had a run-out. We pitched the ball into the front court and had a 3-on–2 break. The ref up with the break suddenly blew his whistle and everyone looked around confused. The ball was nowhere near a defender, so there hadn’t been a foul. He pointed to the scorer’s table and yelled, “Start the clock!”

Only problem was the other ref had told the clock operator not to start the clock on the tip since the period was sudden death. We had been on the wrong end of a couple close calls late in the game and pretty much our entire side of the stands let this guy have it. Our calmest parent said she wanted to go punch him when the game was over.

Naturally after the re-start, we turned the ball over, that same ref called a very soft foul 40 feet from the basket, and they hit the first free throw to win.

A real bummer ending to a great performance by our girls. I get the need to keep games moving, but in a championship game, there shouldn’t be sudden death OT. Especially when both teams are in the bonus and either a soft foul or a player making a hustle play who gets a little too aggressive can determine the outcome.

L played her ass off. She scored 14, including a really tough layup late in the second half against their tallest player (who hacked her pretty good but got away with it). She had five turnovers but twice immediately stole it back. Once she made a terribly soft pass they picked off, then she stole it right back, drove the lane and tossed a perfect pass to a cutter for a layup. She locked down that shooter, who didn’t hit a 3 when L was on her in the entire game. And she hit two of the biggest shots of the game. She was mad about the result but pleased with her play as she limped to the car afterward.

If we could just get the team to play as hard in pool play games as they do in championship games…

Sunday night we capped off the weekend with the callout meeting for CHS basketball. She now has a rough idea of what her summer training with her future high school teammates will be like. She’s taking two summer classes. Throw in basketball workouts and homegirl is going to be bizzzzz-y this June.

NFL Draft

I’m long on record as hating the NFL Draft. It’s the most over-hyped event in sports, and sucks far too much air out of the sports media complex for far too long.

That said, I was more interested in this year’s draft than any other I can recall. That was, obviously, because the Colts were drafting at the four spot and there was a lot of confusion about how those first four picks would go.

I think I turned the TV on about ten ’til eight and was immediately annoyed. I should have known the entire thing would be an over-the-top, completely manufactured NFL/ESPN event. Sure enough in the maybe 20 minutes between when I tuned in and Carolina finally made their first pick, I got good and pissed off. Can we just get to the selections? The show is going to take four hours anyway, why do we need to stretch out the beginning?

As for the Colts’ pick, I honestly don’t think there was a sure-thing pick among the four top QB candidates. I was relieved Carolina took Bryce Young, as I worry about his size. Which means he’s going to be great. I liked CJ Stroud, but I wonder about his upside vs being a game manager who doesn’t really elevate a team. So Anthony Richardson was kind of my guy, although I give him like a 25% chance of turning into a franchise-level QB for the next decade. At least he’s an interesting pick. At least he has insane upside. I can deal with the chance that he is a complete bust and this pick sets the franchise back another 4–5 years because it is not a dull pick. If you shoot for the moon and whatnot.

Because I can’t stand that shit, I only glanced at two draft summaries. One gave the Colts an A+ for their overall draft. The other had it ranked as the second-best group. These grades are always suspect, as you never know how an athlete will transition to the pro game, if their bodies will hold up, etc. But it seemed like a good weekend for the Colts, and could be great if Richardson turns into a legit dude.

Weather

Continues to suck. Sunday was especially terrible. We got back from basketball around 1:00. It was dreary and chilly with occasional sprinkles. We had been home about 10 minutes when the skies turned pitch black, it started pouring, and there was small hail. Fifteen minutes later a glorious sun burst through. This cycle repeated all afternoon, with the temps slowly dropping each cycle.

Today it is only supposed to be 45. On May fucking first. With our pool available for swimming.

Weekend Notes

April 24, 2023 /

It was a pretty boring weekend in our house. There were no games or practices. No parental social events. Nothing at all on the calendar.

C talked S into taking her to Ikea to get her birthday present a little early – a new desk set – so we spent Saturday afternoon putting that together and rearranging her room. As always, assembling Ikea furniture was maddening at times. The final result looked good, though, and C was pleased.

L got inspired and asked to move her computer desk from the bonus room into her bedroom. I told her she should just wait a few months until M leaves and make M’s room a computer room. She already plans on taking over M’s bathroom the minute she leaves. She didn’t like my idea, though, so we moved a few things around and her gaming rig is now probably way too close to her bed.

With nothing else really going on, I’ll use this Monday post as a chance to catch up on everything going on with M, as it is SENIOR SZN. Do the kids still say szn?

Friday she sent S and I an excited text that said “I’m a cum laude!” A few years back CHS went to the model where the top 15 percent of the graduating class get slotted into summa, magna, and cum laude honors groups. She had been telling us all year she wouldn’t make it because, “There are so many smart people in my class. I would have made it easily last year, but not this year.”

Damn, throwing some shade at the class of 2022.

My immediate response was:

She was not as amused by that as I was.

Anyway, about ten minutes later she sent another message: “Wait, I didn’t get it.”

The reason for the confusion was kind of fucked up.

The school office called all the seniors who earned honors over the PA in groups. For some reason the principal decided to call an extra ten kids, in between two of the other groups. M was in that extra group. When they got to the office the principal told them that they were all 0.002 GPA points short of making the cut, but she was still super proud of them and wanted them to know they were as valued as the kids who make it.

M was PISSED. The rest of the day she had to either correct people who congratulated her, or, after the official photo of the honors grads got posted and she wasn’t in it, answer questions as to why she was absent.

I get her frustration. You either don’t call those kids to the office over the intercom – have their counselors send them a message that they were close – or round up those 0.002 points and include them. Seems like kind of a shitty thing to do to announce them to the entire school just to tell them, “Sorry, you were soooo close…” She said she spent the day thinking “If only I had taken one more honors class,” or about an A- she got freshman year.

I thought about how since final grades aren’t in yet, how do we know that any of these 10 extra kids won’t end up with a better GPA than some of the kids who got selected ahead of them? Seniors don’t have to take spring finals, but there are still three weeks of classes and plenty of time to wiggle the final GPAs a bit. I guess there has to be a cutoff date, and that will always be before final grades are in.

S told her that no one really gives a shit If you were in the top 15 or 16% of your class. While the extra colors would have been nice on graduation day, M shouldn’t let it bother her once she woke up Saturday morning.

I get that the intent behind including these kids, but I’m not sure the administrators thought it through very well.

Prom is this coming weekend. I’m pretty sure there has already been way more drama around M’s group than last year. There’s some girl drama; one lady in the group has been kind of a wank for a few months and that has caused some problems. Then there has been drama about pre- and post-prom parties, and M’s friend group not all getting invited to the same gatherings.

Making matters worse, Saturday looks like it will be cold and rainy. So M is already stressing about how her hair will look, where we will be able to take pictures, etc.

Weight of the world and whatnot.

We got the invitations for her two grad parties sent out. We are doing a family/friends event at our house on Memorial Day, then she and her two friends are doing a bigger party together in June.

Saturday night, as S and I were winding down, we came to the conclusion that while the college years are certainly going to be expensive, no one warns you how costly the finals weeks of your senior’s high school days will be. Prom, baccalaureate, graduation, graduation parties, then the prep for going off to college. It ain’t going to be a cheap summer for us.

Oh, M informed us last week that she was going to need several dresses because she has so many grad parties to attend. We both laughed and reminded her that she has a job; if she needs more than one dress she can buy the others on her own. She thought we were being incredibly unfair by suggesting that. I kind of enjoy the moments when a kid who is very smart and pretty mature says really dumb stuff. It reminds me she’s still an idiot kid at times.

She is not our only graduating child. L has been bugging us for awhile to host a pool party on her last day of eighth grade. I was very much against this. Even though she has a tiny class – only 28 kids – I didn’t want to deal with all of them. Especially since the last day of school is a Friday and S would be at work.

I asked L if we could just do the girls but she said no, she wanted the entire class.

Then I realized her last day of class is the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, so a lot of people would probably be leaving town that night. I asked around among friends who have lake houses and, yep, they were all leaving Friday night.

S is home on Thursdays. M will have graduated and can help. S suggested we do it that day. Since it was now two against one I had no choice but to go along with that plan.

I sent the invitation out Sunday. I’m sure it will be fine. Although I wouldn’t mind if it stormed and we had to cancel. That makes me a terrible person/parent, doesn’t it?

S has also been trying to get L into dresses for her spring events. Eighth grade Mother’s Day Mass, graduation, and then M’s stuff. L is actually into cute clothes these days, but she hates to go shopping, so it’s been a struggle to find enough clothes for the next six weeks of activities.

« Older posts Newer posts »

Archives

© 2025 D's Notebook

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑