March Madness

March is a busy month at Zach's work. They host a ton of basketball tournaments so, naturally, Zach has to be there for most of them. Basically if we want to see him, we have to go there to do it. Or if we want him to come home, we have to go there and drag him out of there. I think for three nights in a row this past week Jacob and I were at the college for at least an hour or two either bringing him dinner, ice skating, or just hanging out.

The other night, after one of the games had just gotten over with, Jacob and I went out to center court to visit with Zach. Then we settled down to read a book, Where's Waldo, so we didn't die from boredom. While we were perusing the pages for that sneeky guy Waldo it suddenly struck me that it was a lot like trying to find Zach in the crowds during a game. When Jacob and I had gotten there earlier that night I remembered remarking to Jacob that we had to look for Zach by trying to find the bright coral colored shirt (see top picture) I knew he was wearing that night.

Just before we'd settled down to read the book, Jacob had gone sprinting across the court, all the way to the other side, and then made a slight adjustment to the curtain marking off the sidelines. He came sprinting back, one hand gripping the waistband of his pants, and quickly explained, "I just had to line that up." And it was all the explanation I needed. There's no one better than me to understand the subtle things that can throw off your day, and the desperate, desperate need to make the adjustments so you can breathe easier, no matter how strange it may seem to others.

I think it was the next night that Jacob and I were there again, and this time we got to ice skate all by ourselves. We'd been going at least once a week in the first half of the season, but then it sort of petered out. Zach reminded me last week that the ice would be coming up soon. I had totally forgotten to prepare Jacob for that. He was really crushed for a couple days. Anyway, if I'm lucky, once a year or so I get to sneek on the ice by myself. The lights were all dim and it was quiet. Jakie and I had a great time skating. He does really well on his own now so there were plently of opportunities to spin around on my own, taking in the thick smell of ice that was in the air. I didn't have the camera with me and was really sad that I wasn't able to get one last picture of us on the ice together. If I had, it would be inserted right here ;-)

On the way out of the sports complex the next night, Jacob wanted to go into the rink to watch the hockey, "Just for a minute." Zach and I were standing there with our stern parent faces one and we were all, "If you go in there then there's no Gilmore Girls when we get home." So Jacob went in anyway, and it occured to me that if it was so important to him to watch the hockey for a minute that he would sacrifice the Gilmore Girls, who was I to force him to make that decision? "What the hell's wrong with us? We're mean parents." I said to Zach. He agreed. We talked about how it was like we were trying to break him, or at least bend his will to suit our own. What's up with that? We're not mean people, why would we do that to our kid? Anyway, we watched far more than one minute, and then we came home to watch some G.G.