March – Page 4 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Matthew plays…Futsal?!

About the same time that winter baseball conditioning got started, Joaquin, one of the boys on Matthew’s team asked the kids if they wanted to play on an indoor soccer team- or actually it is called Futsal. He has played for a while and is pretty good. The head coach (Jimmie) of our baseball team and a friend of his said they would coach any of the boys that wanted to play. Jimmie thought it would be some good extra conditioning for the boys. It wouldn’t be to much of a time commitment. They have a practice and a game every other week. The kicker is that the practices are usually Friday nights and the games start between 6-8 on Saturday morning. Barf! But of course as soon as Matthew heard it could help his baseball conditioning he was all in.

About five of the boys said they would play and then a few younger siblings that play soccer joined giving them a team of about 8-9. They had there first game before they had any practices just because of how the schedule worked out. So the coaches and Joaquin were literally telling them what they were supposed to do as they were getting ready to head onto the field. This is where it got entertaining. As I mentioned, only one player on the team has ever played soccer on any regular basis. The younger siblings have played but they are 1-2 years younger than everyone else. All the other boys from our baseball team have never played soccer (Matthew played for six weeks when he was four). They are all athletic kids obviously, but their soccer knowledge and skills are pretty limited. All of this was pretty obvious between the two teams in the three minute warm up time they have before the game starts.

There are seven players on the field at a time so we only have 1-2 subs and once they start the clock it doesn’t stop for 45 minutes except for a 3 minute half time time in the middle. No time outs, no breaks. If you want to switch a player you have to do it really quick while the ball is somewhere else, including the goalie position. We got smoked the first game and the boys were red in the face, gasping for breath, wiped out. Since then though we actually have won a couple games. There is marked improvement each game. The cheering from the parents is pretty funny. We don’t really know how to cheer for soccer. We don’t know the names of the positions and the exact rules (especially since it is Futsal, not soccer). We keep it pretty generic and laugh at ourselves when we goof up. The boys try their hardest and do a great job. It is a little ridiculous sometimes when they get a little out matched. Some of them take a few minutes to warm up and not be intimidated by the ball. Joaquin is a machine and plays the whole time with enough energy for two players and helps his less Futsal savvy baseball buddies the best he can.

The main reason I wanted to write this post is to remember this particular event in one game. It was hilarious, it has been a few weeks now and every now and then it pops into my head and I start laughing again just as hard. One game, a boy named Frankee was goalie and was really struggling. No matter how many times his dad ‘encouraged’ him to use his hands because he was the goalie-he wouldn’t. I think from the gestures he was making at his dad he was concerned about getting kicked in the face. Before you start thinking I am making fun of a 12 year old kid. I’m not. Frankee is one of our best players on our baseball team. He is a great catcher, and third base, and a pretty decent hitter. He has a little flare of drama and humor to him too. Anyway, we started getting pretty behind on points which further frustrated him and he asked, then begged, then insisted that someone replace him. “Coach! Can’t you see I suck?! Take me out!” The problem is we don’t have extra players so there isn’t a lot of wiggle room for moving people around, or time. Eventually he got switched and was a forward ( I think). While all this was taking place his dad (who Frankee gets his humor from) had been getting frustrated with his performance from the stands as well and was keeping us laughing with his own comments and suggestions. His first play with the ball after Frankee switched positions he was running at the ball and went to kick it and totally missed and caught his foot on the ground and fell on top of himself and a few other kids on his own team, leaving the ball in the middle of three players from the other team to take off with. Oh man, it was so funny!! I wish I had it on video because I would send it to AFV. His dads reaction of shock and shaking his head and putting his head in his hands while muttering something about “I thought we had walking mastered” made it even funnier. Probably more of a had to be there moment to appreciate the full hilariousness of the scene, but like I said, weeks later I still start laughing out loud when I think of it….yep, still makes me laugh.

Fast forward a few weeks and Frankee was goalie again for today’s game and did a great job. Matthew scored two goals today and is getting some pretty nice footwork skills going. Kudos to all of them for not only trying something new and hanging in there, but doing their best and showing improvement each game, AND doing it at 6am! Blah!! They are a fun group of kids and parents. I am excited for baseball season to start.

Goodbye February! Part two.

Since I’m talking about being sick I will give a little summary of sickness tolerance of our family. I don’t like my kids to be sick obviously but I do have a little extra nurturing mom side that comes out when they are sick. I love that I can take care of them and I know all of the little things to make them feel better. When Ryan reads the last few sentences he is going to…react…so I will start with the reason for that and get it cleared up.

Ryan and I didn’t really have to many big adjustments to each other when we got married but being sick and the expectations of the other person was one of them that we bumped through a few times. So here are our pre-marriage expectations.

Me 2002- Life needs to continue whether you are sick or not so suck it up and keep going. Colds don’t even count as being sick, they are just a nuisance. If you are sick you are a wimp. Take care of yourself if you are sick.

Ryan 2002- When you are sick, you get in bed and rest and get over it. You don’t go to work, or church or anything because no one wants to be around you anyways and get sick. Your wife takes care of you and sympathizes with your sickness.

With those expectations in mind…

Many, many, many years ago Ryan was sick. At the time I think I was working every Monday at an office. We had someone that watched Matthew for us. I came down the stairs to go to work and Ryan was on the couch and said he didn’t feel good so he was going to stay home from work. Unbeknownst to me, not only was he sick but he had been throwing up or coughing all night or something so he was extremely tired on top of his illness. I asked him if he was going to keep Matthew home with him or if he still wanted me to take him to the sitter. He said, “No, I’m sick” I said, “Ok” and for the next ten plus years I have been labeled as the ‘cold, unsympathetic, heartless wife’ that was ‘disgusted that her poor sick husband wouldn’t watch their son when he was sick’ basically almost dying. That is Ryan’s version. My version is,the first time I had to work when Ryan had a man cold I asked if he was still taking Matthew or not so I could let our sitter know. He said he was still taking him and I went to work.

Ryan, right about now I sense your desire to come tell me your version of the story AGAIN. Keep reading.

Fast forward a few years of practice and you now have our adjusted expectations. These are of course ideal situations and sometimes adjustments have to be made but this is the general idea.

Ryan 2018- When Ryan is sick he wants to be left alone to sleep or play a video game, but he likes to be checked in on occasionally so see if he needs company or a refill or medicine. The longer he is sick the more he likes to be checked on because he gets lonely. He likes to be in his room with the door closed so it is quiet and the blinds closed so it is dark. He likes ice water with a little ice, and lemon lime Gatorade. If he has an appetite he prefers some kind of chicken soup. He will not be doing any other tasks until he is feeling better. After years of proving my nursing abilities I have almost redeemed myself from my original blunder.

Me 2018- When I am sick, I get to be sick. Many times Ryan has stayed home from work to take care of the kids so I can rest. I get to have the door closed and be in my bed and sleep. He will check on me and see if I need anything. It is almost like a little vacation-except I feel like crap. I will still probably go to work if I am scheduled but I do realize that people don’t want to be exposed to whatever I have when I am sick so I am getting better at staying home. Colds still don’t count as being sick (for adults), however, they are a reasonable excuse to go to bed early if you’re a wimp. 🙂

Where our kids are concerned we also made a lifetime arrangement due to each others stronger than usual aversion to vomit or poop. When possible and reasonable Ryan is in charge of clean up and assisting in areas of vomiting. I have the same agreement when poop is involved. I think I got a pretty good deal because vomit has the potential to appear for years to come, hopefully poop doesn’t.

Ok, I veered a little off topic. I may sound like I am joking describing some of our sick traits, and it can be overwhelming sometimes, especially when there are multiple people sick but I love my family and I love nursing them back to health when they are sick. As long as they don’t throw up on me.

Emilee- She stays true to her typical snuggly, mommy loving self but kicks it up a notch. When Emilee is sick she feels best when I am physically touching her and devoting all my attention to watching her be sick. Sitting by her reading a book, or watching a show, or doing anything else is not good enough. She wants me to make her a sick bed on the couch with her fridge cold water in a sippy cup so I can help her drink it without her having to lift her head. Then lay next to her and look at her and say that I am sorry she is sick while stroking her hair. She will take medicine if it is bubble gum flavored.

Matthew- He is changing to more of the sit in front of the tv/play video games until he is better but he has some things he likes too. Matthew likes to be waited on hand and foot when he is sick. He likes to be checked on regularly and have the option of having a sick bed on the couch or staying in his room. He wants a sprite and water to drink. He also loves orange jello that is stirred just before it is all the way set so it is like a soup not a solid jello. He is the best at taking medicines (even if they are disgusting) and will ask for medicines for specific things-like a throat spray or cough or headache. He used to have night terrors at random times when he was little. Now they are just when he is sick, and his asthma always gets worse towards the end of his sickness, which means he usually takes the longest to get better.

Allison- Alli is our lock it down don’t mess with me sick person. She is by far sick the least amount of anyone. She has only had to take antibiotics twice in her life. The first time was Penicillin and we discovered she was allergic to it. She has never even had an ear infection. She is usually sick the shortest amount of time too. When she is sick she wants a sick bed on the couch with her blanket. She wants a throw up bowl and ice water within arms reach. Then she pretty much lays there and sleeps until she is better. She will get up and go to the bathroom when she needs and she likes to be carried up to her bed at night and then carried back down in the morning but otherwise she wants to be left alone. She will not take any medicine. She is just now starting to occasionally take Tylenol but most of the time she will have nothing to do with it-not even a cough drop.

Goodbye February! Part One

Well this month gave us a nice kick in the pants on its way out.

Last week Ryan came home from work Thursday afternoon and was not feeling well. By that evening he was quickly going down the full fledged flu path. The kids went to school Friday-first day back in a week. Sunday night Matthew was down and out. One of the worst parts for him when he gets sick is that he has night terrors. He is not awake but he is walking around talking and acting like he is awake and he is usually literally terrified out of his mind and thinks his life is in immediate danger. It sucks. He will be screaming and begging us to help him, but there isn’t much we can really do until he wakes up. I am scared to death he is going to give himself a heart attack. We have several ways to try and wake him up but it can take a good 5-10 minutes sometimes. So he had a few of those Sunday night. I was up with him because Ryan wasn’t doing any better and then I went to work and he and Ryan stayed home sick together. Monday evening Emilee joined the unfortunate sickies. Matthew had more night terrors but upped his game. He woke me and Emilee around 1 in the morning. I told him we were going to go downstairs and get a drink I started to follow him down the stairs and stopped just long enough to tell Emilee everything was fine and go back to sleep. Matthew went downstairs, unlocked the front door and walked right on out! I heard the door open and took off to get him. He was at the bottom of the driveway by the time I got out the front door. I was really thinking I was going to have to chase him down and tackle him to get him home. Luckily when I called him he stopped and I was able to coax him back. Holy crap! So the positive side to these night terrors is that when he finally does snap out of it and wake up he doesn’t remember it. Like I said most of the time he is terrified for his life at the very least his safety, so it is nice that he doesn’t remember those feelings or stress when he wakes up. But, now I am worried that he is going to get out of the house sometime and I don’t hear him and walk to some location before he wakes up and have no idea where he is, no frame of reference on how he got there. Sheesh! I did not sleep very well the rest of the night. I kept jumping out of bed at every little noise and Matthew had another night terror around four. At that point he didn’t think he could go back to sleep so I boxed him in ‘my house’ with a blanket on the couch so he would wake me up if he moved and we watched a show/dozed together until I had to go to work. I called Ryan over lunch and he said Alli was now home sick. I was supposed to work Wednesday and Thursday but I asked them to find a sub for me (who was the sub for them already) and I stayed home the rest of the week. Emilee bounced back and was back to school Wednesday. Ryan said on Tuesday that he ‘just felt sick, not like death’ so he went to work Wednesday and Alli and Matthew made it back Friday. Knock on wood I have had a sore throat and felt run down but hopefully that is the extent of if for me. This Winter has been a rough one for our family. We occasionally have one or two of us get sick but we have all had some bug or another multiple times this Winter. Yuck!

Daddy-Daughter Dance

Tonight was the Girl Scouts Daddy-daughter dance. Alli was pretty excited. You can make it as fancy as you want so she wanted Ryan to wear his suit and she got a new fancy dress. She loves it when she braids her hair and then takes it out and it is kinky so we braided it last night and she wore it all day until it was time to get ready for the dance. It was really fun helping her get ready and finding her dress. Especially since I know she is on a date with a pretty awesome daddy, instead of some dumb boyfriend. She will know the girls from her school that are there including her bestie Carlee and her friends Aliya and Cambrie she has known since birth. They are having it in a hotel ballroom so it is pretty official. I told Ryan to get lots of pictures of her dancing and having a good time. She looked very pretty tonight. He asked her if she wanted to go to dinner first. She of course was all for it and said Pizza Street was her choice (bottom of the barrel pizza buffet). Ryan said for a fancy date he had to take her to a little fancier place and convinced her to do Pie Five instead (made to order, fresh ingredients pizza place). Then it was off to dance the night away and when dad is all danced out he plans to end the evening with an extra big ice cream dessert.

I am really glad she wanted to do girl scouts. They have had a lot of fun activities together that help fill her social needs. Last weekend and this weekend she is helping with a cookie booth. Who knew standing in front of a grocery store selling girl scout cookies for 1-2 hours is a fun time!?

This is a bit of a tangent but I really love that we have been here in the same area since Matthew was two. It is fun to be somewhere so long that you start to have connections and people you see as you are just out walking around. Whether it is running into someone from the gym at the grocery store or Matthew’s school teacher buying cookies from Alli’s cookie booth, or knowing someone that used to be in your ward at church when you take your kids to their gymnastic class. I just like that I feel connected and so familiar with where I live, roots I guess is a good way to sum it up. Moving around a lot growing up I never really felt that. I like that my kids point out places as we drive by that they remember going to so and so’s birthday party years ago, or going to play at the park and seeing a friend you used to go to dance class with. Matthew runs into a lot of his friends from his old school when he is playing sports too. Its fun.