Moving On

Sometimes time has a way of flicking you in the face, and then smacking you on the backside on your way out the door.

I’m not really old. I know that. But I went for a walk on campus at UNL this week (waiting for a carload of kids at science camp). As I walked away from my car, I noticed how it stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the high density of out-of-county license plates. Not because I had Lancaster plates. It was the only vehicle on the whole street with one of those sports window stickers in the back. Clearly no one else parked on this street has to worry about getting someone else’s water bottle ready for practice or about losing their voice screaming like a soccer mom. Yes, my car has been branded, as well as its driver. These schoolers might drive as if they are wild and free, but I have all-wheel drive, seat heaters, and more insurance. Knowing what I know now, I’ll take the later. A warm backside speaks for itself.

I noticed construction workers in the lot at the Alpha Phi sorority. One of these days I’ll get up the courage to go inside and take a look. I wonder if they still have the same diagonally vacuumed green carpet. As I passed the Sig Ep house, I saw a long-haired “dude” coming out of the house to take a run. I’m not sure how long that guy would have survived in Rick’s day. Maybe he was rushed for his grade point average.

I got myself a drink at the Juicestop and wandered around campus, attempting to recall the names of the buildings as I went by. I remembered Sheldon, the Business Admin building, Hamilton, Oldfather, Burnett, and Andrews. As I was checking out the new doors (probably not that new) on Love library, I walked past a group of students obviously on their new student initiation day. You can always tell the new student groups because one kid is always walking backwards out front while a confused-looking group follows, consulting their maps.

I remembered how nervous and intimidated I was on my student initiation day. I came from a class of 54 and we didn’t have to leave the building, or the main floor, to find our classes. When I did the math, I remembered I graduated in 1992. And this is 2012. Yikes. That is 20 years people. It can’t be 20 years since I graduated from college. I still don’t feel like it can be 20 years since I graduated from high school, although we had that reunion years ago.

It was scary, going from Geneva High to UNL. It also was scary going from my little Lutheran school class of 5 to that class of 54. And now my baby, Mandy, is going from a little Lutheran school class of 2 to a class of around 500. Talk about culture shock.

In May Mandy went to a new student day at Lincoln Southwest high school. I dropped her off at the door and texted her to make sure she was OK. Even though she is registered as a student there (I later called the registrar to check) they didn’t have her name in their records at the door. So they randomly assigned her to a group and stuck a sticky “Hello my name is…” nametag on her for the day. The rest of the kids had cool lanyard nametags. She was feeling lost and scared because she didn’t know what to do. But somehow she made it through the day. I, of course, wanted to park my car and storm inside and get it all sorted out. But I was told in no uncertain terms by my 14-year-old daughter via text that I was not allowed to enter the building. That would be an embarrassment worse than death. (The same sort of embarrassment of my going out on to the court or field if Joe had a basketball or football injury.) So I sat on pins and needles the rest of the day waiting to see if everything turned out alright.

The first thing she said when she got in the car was “Mom, I’m scared.” She said the school has three floors of classrooms, and they are sectioned in alphabetic groups. She isn’t sure how she will possibly make it to her classes in time, especially when all 2,000 students are there.

But it wasn’t all bad news. She said the salad bar is fabulous. There are no cute boys in her class that she could see. However, there were several really cute Juniors who were looking her way. Rick was overjoyed. Of course only half of the future freshmen were there that afternoon. I’m sure all the cute future-freshmen football players came with the other half in the morning. Besides, we aren’t going to have to worry about boys. Mandy is going to live her first year in high school, completely celibate, devoting her life to studies, sports, and the theater. At least this is what Rick keeps telling himself to get through the summer. Twenty years may slow you down, but I don’t think it makes you stupid.

Anyways, Rick and I are hoping that her volleyball will help her with the transition. This is what we’ve been devoting all these evenings and weekends to accomplishing. We hope she can make a high school team so she can make friends. Most volleyball girls we know work hard, get decent grades, are pretty self-confident, and like to hang out together. We want her to have a circle of friends that she can hang out with, who do their school work and don’t do drugs. We don’t care if she makes the freshmen team, the reserve team, or the junior varsity. In fact, we are OK if she doesn’t make a team at all. Just as long as she meets some nice girls at tryouts.

She already knows a couple of dozen girls from club volleyball, basketball, and soccer. She’s made several friends from the open gym times at Southwest this May. The girls who are going to tryout for volleyball were invited to come and scrimmage with the girls on the team. What we didn’t know at the time was that the coaches were watching and picking out a few select girls they wanted to play with the older girls in a summer league. It’s a big group of girls – about 50 – who the coaches have to evaluate in a short amount of time.

So I picked Mandy up from one of the open gym sessions. She comes out of the school looking grim and slams her bag in the back seat and then drops into the front seat next to me. She flings a paper at me with a frown. I look it over and I can’t figure out why she is handing me this paper with times and dates. She says, “You don’t know what that means, do you mom?” She says, “I was selected with eight other girls to play with the junior varsity this summer.” Yes, I admit it, I screamed like a little girl. Mandy was pretty pleased. She is such an actress.

So yes, we are happy for Mandy. Volleyball is going well. It’s been a while since I’ve written in my blog. Mandy played with the other team Magic Umi girls in semi-nationals in Minneapolis. Their volleyball team finished ninth out of 72 gold teams. That is just incredible. Some of the teams had girls who were more than 6 feet tall. Mandy had a huge block at the net against one of them. That was fantastic.

Because the girls finished in the top 10, the parents got together and had a party. We rented a limo for the girls to ride around Lincoln while the parents enjoyed several refreshments. The girls had great fun cruising O Street and stopping for ice cream.

We’ve had a lot of great memories the last month. Along with her volleyball accomplishments, Mandy’s spirit soccer team, the Kroo, finished first in their league of 13- to 15-year-olds. This is the first time their team ever finished first. They finally beat the Beatrice team, their nemesis. Hopefully we will soon have a party for the soccer girls, as well. Mandy also did well at the WELS track meets. At her first track meet, she got a fourth place (the 200m), a third (triple jump), a second (shot put), and a first (discus). At the second track meet she got two firsts in discus and shot put, and a second place in the triple jump. Joe also achieved his first track ribbon. He got third in the shot put. He may not be fast, but he isn’t built like a Mack truck for nothing.

We also recently celebrated Mandy getting confirmed with a big party and celebrated her graduation from 8^th grade. There are going to be a lot of lower graders and a few upper grade boys who may actually cry next year. Poor Trevor. He will be so alone without Mandy next year when he is in the eighth grade. Sometimes he was more of one of the girls than Mandy was. She will miss her Trevorbear.

We are excited for Mandy and the upcoming year. She is going to be doing a lot of prep for volleyball this summer. She will do some individual training, some club Magic tryout training, and even some kickboxing classes with the other Southwest volleyball girls at 7am. She may have more muscles than Rick by the end of the summer.

But while she works so hard to get ready for high school, I feel as if she is clinging even harder to our family. She would rather go to a movie with her mom or a Saltdogs game with her dad than plan an outing with friends. I am trying to cherish these moments this summer, because I am sure it will be a few years until I am not the most embarrassing person on this earth (although sometimes I take second to Rick.) High school can be a big game changer.

But I’ve always got Joe. He is not afraid to dance around like a goon and he always has the best one-liners. Today he was watching SpongeBob. I asked if we really had to watch SpongeBob. He said yes mom, he had to get in a half hour of SpongeBob every day to kill a few brain cells. Otherwise he would be too smart for the rest of us. Oh Joe. A couple nights ago we were talking about something gross at the dinner table, and Joe said “You guys have to stop talking about that or you are going to make me lose my appetite. Oh…no…wait. There it is.” That’s Joe. Not a lot can separate him from a rack of smoked ribs.

But, back to feeling old. I can remember how I felt going to high school and college like it was yesterday. And then again something always comes along to remind you how much time has past. Rick has been having some chest pains the past week or two. He went to the doctor and they did the whole EKG and the stress test. Everything looks just fine. He doesn’t appear to have any heart issues. His cholesterol is back up a little, but eating seven tacos at the Saltdogs Taco Tuesday night probably doesn’t help. It’s back to the chicken and fish for him. Just in time for fishing season.

It puts things in perspective. The last two months we have been running so much between the kids’ sports, work, church, and the apartment house, that we really haven’t spent much quality time together. And with Mandy going to high school, there are only a few years left before she is moving on.

So we decided to buckle down, find a week this summer, and take the kids to Maui. Ever since we went in December, we decided we wanted to take the kids. So we just booked it. And we can’t wait.

I’ll be stocking up for sunblock for Joe. And Mandy is already assembling her bikini-laden wardrobe. Aren’t we glad she is going to live the next year devoted to her studies? Besides, there aren’t any cute, muscular Hawaiian boys in swim suits just waiting at your beck and call to set up your beach umbrella and bring you pool drinks. It’s just the vacation Rick needs. Good thing the doctor gave him the all clear.