The Wheeler Version of March Madness

To many people March Madness only refers to a basketball tournament that comes along once a year and those who never watch a college game all year will fill out a bracket and even wager a small amount of money at the office. At the Wheeler home, March Madness is way of life that we experience every year at this time which includes, but is not limited to the popular NCAA Basketball Tournament.
We love to watch the college boys and fill out our brackets just like everyone else. Jeff has even devised a complex point system to determine the final winner in our home, who will receive their favorite candy bar and soda as a prize. However, this is only a small part of what March Madness means to us. March seems to be the month that both of our children have activities that overlap. Basketball is winding down while baseball, softball and track are gearing up.
Last Thursday began a string of eleven games that Alex played in seven days. He played in two basketball tournaments and had two nights of double header baseball games. On top of that Rachel had track practice every night and a school field trip. I know that sounds extreme. We are not the type of parents that push our kids--the scheduling just happened to work out that way for some reason. Believe me, we were dragging by Friday and I was looking to being at home so badly that was all I could think about.
It is now Saturday and I have yet to really be home. Kay is probably beginning to think we have moved back in! Since we do not have television reception, cable or dish, we decided to watch the tournament at Larry and Kay's Friday night and we haven't left yet. Not true, we did go home and sleep! That was until I had to get up and get Rachel ready for a softball practice and track practice.
I don't know how Alex could possibly be moving, but he has been shooting hoops between the games in which he is most interested. I don't know how he has the energy. Rachel even took a nap and last night I had to lie on the couch for three hours just to rest up enough to make my two mile drive home! Today is easier on my body, but I haven't stayed at home. We're back to watch more of the tournament and since I'm not at my house to be reminded of what all needs to be done, I've had time to relax all day and blog this evening. The kids have been able to enjoy their grandparents and they are sneaking off to other televisions occasionally to watch some other shows they don't have the opportunity to see.
I think my body is recuperating and next week is looking pretty good. Since everything just happened to fall last week, this coming week's schedule has really cleared out. Only 1-2 practices every night and two track meets--not too bad. Jeff and I think it sounds great especially when we realized that last year in the middle of all of this activity we were building a house, putting in hardwood floors until wee hours of the morning, and moving besides working all day! Whew! It's good thing the Madness is only for one month.

Non-Accomplishments

I don't really have anything to blog about in particular, but I haven't accomplished a thing all day--so why start now? Alex has been kind of puny lately and his baseball games last night in the arctic winds finished him off so I used a sick day to stay home and take him to the doctor. He's had a cough for almost two weeks and not rested well, but the last time I tried to let him "get over it" he wound up with pneumonia. That was the year I received the Mother of the Year award. I honestly didn't want to tell the doctor I had let him play two games last night in subfreezing wind chills until 9:30pm. (I couldn't take a chance on winning the Mother of the Year twice in a lifetime-- it would make the other moms of the world feel like underachievers.) In spite of all this, I took him to the doctor and, thankfully, he checked out fine. He's taking some allergy medicine to dry him up and hopefully rid him of the cough and me of the guilt. By the way, they won one and lost one last night and I am so sore from shivering I can barely move. I stuck it out both games since I knew he was sick and freezing. I could never have lived with that guilt.
Rachel is gone on her eighth grade field trip and won't be back until later this evening. I have a fairly clean house and only a little laundry. I even just recently finished my Jane Austen book by ignoring my whole family for two nights so I didn't even have that to tempt me away from getting a head start on all of the projects I have planned for the upcoming four day weekend.
With all this "free" time at home today I have accomplished precious little. One reason Alex was so cold last night was that he didn't have the new jacket we bought for just such evenings. It was no where to be found and only worn three or four times. I hate that frantic "looking for something that wasn't cheap and I'd better find it" feeling. After the doctor visit, when I did find the jacket, (in his classroom at school) I didn't know whether or not I should be happy I found the expensive item or furious because he still probably didn't learn much of a lesson from all of this.
After all the time I spent at the doctor and jacket hunting, I stopped by the school just to pick up Alex's homework and wound up working for three hours. In my spare time, I have also texted Rachel several times today. Now you have to realize that I am the world's worst texter, but she thinks it is cool so I was trying to oblige. I truly dislike texting. I would much rather spend 1.5 minutes dialing her up and talking than spending 20 minutes trying to text. (That's not an exaggeration about the first attempt.) Besides that-- I can't stand the lack of spelling and punctuation.
Needless to say, I have not been at home much today and now I am blogging at 5:30 pm without a clue what to fix for dinner.
Sorry for the interruption, Rachel just texted-- there went another twenty minutes.
Sorry . . . Jeff just called. He reminded me of the fundraiser dinner the children' s choir is having at church. I may just have to go get some dinner to go. Now that would solve my dinner problem, preserve my clean kitchen and keep my "non-accomplishment" day in tact. Maybe things aren't so bad after all!
Have a great evening!

Excuses, Esther, Education

There are dozens of reasons I could give you for not blogging in the past month. I will not attempt to relay all of them to you because you know what people say about excuses. Anyway, probably the biggest reason I haven't blogged is the lack of inspiration. I am not my daughter. I : 1) do not have time to blog every day. 2) am not the type to write a diary of my life. 3) do not need to write a diary of my life because my daughter tells everyone everything about what is going on with our family. 4) have a tendency to overanalyze my writing and it sucks all of the fun out of it. 5) like to do to many other things better.

Enough about my excuses--let's move on to the real inspiration behind this blog. This morning in our church service the drama team (made up of middle and high school students) led our worship service. I was blessed beyond measure. These were all students who went on the Colorado trip that Jeff and I were able to make during Christmas. While listening, it reminded me of many of the memories that were created on our trip and how hard I laughed. As I sat there with tears streaming during one of the songs I was so proud and grateful and broken for these kids. I am proud to know them because they are wonderful people who love the Lord and are set apart in our school. I am grateful for the high schoolers who have pledged to look after my girl and her friends when they move to the new campus next year. I am grateful to God for their witness, commitment and their friendship. And I am broken for what they have to face each and every day. One of the byproducts of our trip to Colorado is a Bible study in Esther with the 7th-12th grade girls in our church. Those of us women who went on the trip are helping our Youth Pastor's wife and we are totally enjoying the spiritual growth for ourselves as well as leading some amazing young women in a special time of discipleship. Yet, I can see how out of touch I have become with the older kids because I am still living in the middle school world. It is not like I am totally out of touch--I work in a public school. I have been removed just enough from our own high school that the names didn't always have faces and they weren't living in my children's worlds. That is beginning to change.
Jeff and I have had a rude awakening in the past seven months as we have come to grips with the fact that our children are no longer little. There have been many teary moments for me since I went to a wedding in September where the bride was one of the girls I last coached when she was Rachel's age. This slap in the face has brought to the dinner table many conversations I don't really want to have, but I am slowly adjusting. Where I have really failed to adjust (until this morning) is devoting more prayer to our high school students. I am excited and nervous about my children growing up in this world, but I know that the Lord is in control of their lives and I want to pray for His will not mine. This morning's service gave me a hope that there are other kids out there who want to serve God and will share Him with others. One of the boys shared the scripture from II Corinthians 4:7. He spoke of how God uses our weaknesses when we witness so that we can take no glory. He then made the comparison of us to when you cover a light with a flawless jar, you can see no light. If you place a cracked jar over the light, you can see the light through the cracks. It was a great picture of how God can use us even though we are not perfect, but He is! Even though I have not been praying for our high school as I should, I know that God has now placed us in the lives of high schoolers again and He will use us anyway. For this we are excited and grateful.

On a side note: If you read Rachel's blog, she made mention of showing her crack in public and it might have left you wondering. Strange as it may sound it was a comment that the boy speaking made today when he was discussing the text above. He is one of the most hilarious kids I think I have ever met. He was in our van one day on the Colorado trip and Jeff and Alex and I were sore in the stomach from laughing so hard. This morning he just mentioned that he wanted to make sure his crack showed everyday-- in public--and he encouraged us to do the same. Needless to say tears were streaming down my face at this point as well.



God bless you all and remember to pray for high school students everywhere. There is a battle going on for them.