This afternoon I got to drive an hour south to take my two smallest boys to their basketball game. And by “got” I mean “had” since by three o’clock this afternoon I’d already put more than 100 miles on the van and was barely moving on five hours of sleep and a double dose of Robitussin. (Really, I’ve got to get off that stuff…)
I get to the school to pick up my kids for the road trip and before I know it the coach has piled my 13 passenger 4×4 van to maximum capacity, given me a map and sent me on my way with a pat on the back and a ‘thanks Mrs. Riley’. Sometimes bigger is NOT better when it comes to carpooling and ten year olds pumped up on adrenaline and excess snot.
I’m not sure what the road rules are on Ipods while driving, but there was no way I was going to listen to these guys for the next 50 miles so I jammed the earpieces in and cranked Uncle Kracker. My deep love for the music of Uncle Kracker is my dirty little secret. Sssshhhh.
Six minutes later my Ipod battery died. Son-of-Aaaaa. So I spent the next forty minutes reminding myself that at least I’d get a blog out of it. Was it worth it? We’ll see.
Now if you’ve ever driven down the hill to Homer, Alaska, you’ve glimpsed a little piece of heaven and today was no exception. After several last minute April snow showers, the weather has finally turned in our favor and we have had several 50 degree days streaming down on us. 50 degrees and sunny may not seem that great if you live anywhere else, but here in Alaska, after six months of ice and snow, at 50 we’re ready to strip naked and do the hula. Yesterday my boys asked me if they could play in the sprinkler and I had to explain to them it was still frozen in the ground. Point being, it was fricken’ nice today and the descent into Homer was beyond awesome.
I took this photo while driving….er…wait…your kid was in my van with me…what? I didn’t say that! I stopped my van, walked into the middle of the highway wearing a reflective orange vest, and snapped this photo.
No matter how many times I see this view I am impressed with God’s creativity and if you could see what I see, you’d agree as it spans all the way around to my right as far as I can twist my head.
So I get through the drive using nothing more than positive mental attitude and nerves of steel and we arrive at the gym relatively unharmed, unless you count the fact that some girl wet her pants on my seat. I know, that seems major, but most days in my life that’s laughably minor compared to the full spectrum of possibilities.
Now if you’ve never watched a game of anything involving 3rd and 4th graders, you are totally missing out. The littler ones are cute, don’t get me wrong, and the older ones are fun because they are actually skilled. But what’s great about this age is that they think they know what they are doing.
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But what they really look like is a flock of baby chicks fighting over a worm.
My kids are fairly good players, especially if you compare them to Wendy-wets-her-pants (my seat is covered in urine…I can call her names if I want to) and those three or four kids who wander around on the court with no real purpose at all.
We had 27 players…basically the entire 3rd and 4th grades and the other team had eight. I thought, “oh no…we’ll have to take it easy on these guys. They’re pretty small kids and there aren’t many of them.”
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| The complete inability to hold still comes in handy on the court… |
An hour later we’d been creamed like 38 to 6 and I found out three of their eight players were second graders. Seriously. My third and fourth graders had been totally schooled by a seven year old a head shorter. Dang. No dessert for them.
So we loaded back into the van where for the next hour they played, “who loves who”, while it became intently obvious my Nyquil was overdue and prescription strength ibuprofen is just not enough in the battle of patience versus ten year olds.
Two hundred miles later the potty van pulled back into the driveway to discover Mya hosing down her horse like an automatic car wash, Billy doing chores without being asked…always a suspicious act…and that Destini had kindly cooked us dinner. In the grand scheme of things….not a bad day.
