Briefly coming up for air

 WOW these past few weeks have been a lot. I have no idea how we survived all those years of travel hockey my goodness. IT IS SO HARD TO BE GONE EVERY WEEKEND.

So far, I am relying on coffee and pattern mixing to get me through.

Also! I am doing TWO buddy reads: Kin with Engie and Yesteryear with another friend, and I LOVE the buddy read! My Yesteryear friend and I are doing Whistler in June, and I really want someone to read Famesick with, too.

(Other than those books, though, it has been hard ot even find time to read. Because all I have is time confetti, and it is hard to not get stuck in the scroll).

Other things lately:

Minnie got a terrible (but quick!) norovirus that wiped her out for nearly 48 hours. Ben was a WAY BETTER caretaker than I was-- I just cleaned her up and put her back to bed every hour between 1-4 am. Seriously, I wiped her face, changed whatever bedding needed it, and handed her a bowl and stumbled back to bed. After 3 rounds, Ben slept on the floor of her room for the the last couple hours (but saved all the clean up for morning, which was gross and involved lots of towels. Dads, amiright.) But! I think Minnie felt more cared for and supported, even if she was less clean. The next day, Ben stole Cooper's TV, and Minnie just laid in her bed and drank water and threw it up. ALL DAY LONG. SO BRUTAL. SO many sheets changes.

Dorothy had another dance comp the same days Cooper had a dive meet (I have no pictures of the dive meet-- this is just bad communication from Ben and me.) Cooper won all 3 events and nearly topped all his PRs. He scored 9.5, 9, 9.5 on this dive and was beyond jazzed (or as the WI governor would say, "jazzed as hell")

Minnie went along to diving on Friday (because Jack was at the state speech tourney, so the choice was either dive or dance, and dive was more sedentary) because she had been puke free for more than 12 hours by that point, but she was still just a puddle of humanity.  Friday night was just trio for Dorothy-- it's super cute (I mean tough-- they are tough, not cute)

Saturday Minnie felt much better-ish, so she came to dance.

Dorothy only had 4 dances on Saturday (very spread out comp), and the day flew by for Minnie and me

And for Dorothy!

Jazz:

Hip hop large group

Hip hop super geoup

(Dorothy definitely lost those glases on stage and then they got trampled. Oops.)

Lyrical (this dance is really pretty and also really fast, so it is hard to get a good pic of anyone)

Everything won. Well, not everything because lyrical and jazz were competing against each other (jazz won overall, and lyrical was 4th). Hip hop won overall in its category, and so did super group. The kids were thrilled.

Meanwhile, in Neenah, WI, Jack finished an excellent high school speech career with another state final round!!!!

Sunday meant MORE DANCE AND DIVING. Also! Harry and his girlfriend were in town for a College Democrats conference, so Ben got to have breakfast with them. Jack slept in (earned it!) and Minnie was LOCKED IN as a dance supporter, even repping her studio on her shirt. She also had a little bit of an appetite.

Dorothy had only 2 dances on Sunday, but that made the day feel longer, if I am being honest.

Commercial:

And tap (she hates the costume but I think it is the cutest ever)

She had a total blast!

Ok-- I am off to do one more 20-minute upper body strength workout for the week, run, get everyone off to school, grade a million essay exams, got to an undergrad research symposium, and drive to the Chicago burbs for MOAR dance and dive. **gulp**