Big Event Weekend.

This long weekend is full of big stuff. It's not as big (for me, at least) as the first week of December will be, but still busy. Thursday Katherine had a lock-in at a nearby church. As it happens, the church where my water broke when I was pregnant with Jonathon... that's a story for another day if you don't know it already. She was up all night long then slept until 2:30 yesterday afternoon to make up for it before heading out with Ian to the Foo Fighters concert at Verizon Center with some friends. They left around 3:30 Friday afternoon and made it home about 1:30 this morning. I don't think I'll see Katherine until at least noon. Probably not Ian either.

Meanwhile, Rebecca had some friends over for a sleepover. For her birthday I'm taking her and 3 friends to see "A Christmas Carol" at Ford's Theater, but since these 3 friends mix worlds, and Rebecca doesn't like mixing worlds, she wanted to have them over beforehand so there would be no awkwardness on her birthday.

One friend arrived, then we drove to pick up another in Falls Church, and the third came over shortly after we returned home. It all worked out. After pizza and a project...

...two girls fell asleep against their will around 3 a.m. The other two stayed up until 5 a.m. Guess how Rebecca will be later today... a) happy-go-lucky, b) sleepy but sociable, c) a royal pain in the neck due to exhaustion.

But they had fun, and aside from quite a bit of noise even past 1 a.m., they were fine.

I do have to give a shoutout to Rebecca and her friends. They were really really good with the boys. They talked to them, included them a bit, let them hang around last night and this morning. They also didn't complain about my poorly shaped and periodically burnt pancakes. They're a really nice group of girls.

Ignore the dirty stove top, please.

This is what the morning looked like when I was making coffee in order to stay awake during Katherine's first morning of swim practice. 5 a.m. to 6 a.m.

Thankfully I only have to see that time on Monday mornings. It will make the rest of the week feel like a piece of cake.

Meanwhile, while the boys were doing sporty things...

Rebecca spent all day at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. The same school President Obama recently visited. It's a school very near where my parents live and with the day starting at 8 a.m. she spent the night with my folks and they took her to school. For the next 8 hours she did math, math and more math with other kids who did a lot of math. She felt out of her league with some of these kids even with taking Algebra at the high school. The entire collective of middle schoolers ranged from those in 6th grade honors math, to those in pre-Calculus.

There were 235 kids. Rebecca is somewhere in the back.

She was exhausted by the end. There were no awards for her or her table and she was overwhelmed with all the material she wasn't familiar with. The mix of students were exceptionally high in Asian and SCA descendants, it was reminiscent of our school in Chennai.

Honestly, I don't think she'd jump at the chance to do the program again!

UPDATE: Rebecca learned that of the delegation sent from Saunders, she ranked first among her crew. So she's not the most brilliant mathematician in the greater Northern Virginia area, but in her school, she's top notch.

TryHockeyForFree

USA Hockey did a nationwide open hockey clinic for kids age 4-9 on Saturday. Our ice rink didn't put an age cap on the clinic so Jonathon suited up and spent an hour on the ice.

There was some hockey going on. The kids were equipped with sticks and there were pucks...

... and there was a lot of time spent falling and getting up off the ice. For the really young kids a good amount of time was spent just holding them up, not-falling the priority far more than any hockey playing.

Thankfully Jonathon does have some sense of balance so every once in a while he looked like a hockey player.

Both boys want to play hockey. Not entirely realistic considering neither can really skate and we're moving to a Middle Eastern country that doesn't host a frozen rink at all, but the interest is where it starts and they can take some learn-to-skate classes as long as we're here.

Life Sans Tonsils

Katherine had her tonsillectomy last month and has fully recovered. She did return to school after a week, much to her surgeon's chagrin when we saw him for the follow-up. No, we hadn't asked permission for her to go back to school, but after a week she was down to a sore throat, off her pain meds, and suffering a massive case of cabin fever. It was time and we all knew it. The doc acknowledged that she had a quicker and better recovery than a majority of kids her age. Apparently the older you get the worse the recovery from a tonsillectomy.

She no longer snores, thank the heavens. And while she doesn't sleep more hours at night, she's achieving normal sleep which effectively has doubled the amount of rest she's physically getting. Dreams/nightmares are a periodic occurrence, not an all-night-every-night affair. She falls asleep easily. She wakes easily. And she stays awake during the day at school. Last year, all these things were challenges.

There's so much to Katherine, it's impossible to pigeonhole what is really going on with any aspect of her being. The tonsillectomy was a physical fix, clearly one of the easiest permanent things we could do to help her out. We'll continue doing what we can. She's such an amazing kid, full of potential and possibility. While there's a long road ahead of her to being comfortable in her own skin, she's come so far in the past year it's remarkable. Her story is still being written and I have no doubt the tale will be nothing we could have imagined.

It'll be better.

All Dressed Up

Last month Katherine attended her second Homecoming dance. She wore the same outfit as last year which saved a pretty penny! While the dance was held in the high school gym last year, this time it was at the Kelley Leadership Center, which made the event much more special. Cause you know, it's not a gym.

There's a slight height discrepancy, even without the heels. But especially with the heels.

She had a good time in a safe and controlled environment, and that's all that matters.

Right around the same time was spirit week at Saunders MS. One day - Kids and teachers dress as each other.

Is he sharp or is he sharp?

All Hallow's Eve