An Unusual, but Calm Saturday

Friday night, Calfgrit13 went to an overnight “lock in” at Adventure Landing with a friend’s church group. His friend’s family picked him up from here at home after 8pm, and he spent the entire night playing laser tag, video games, driving go-carts, and generally doing anything to keep from falling asleep. Although CG13 says he did sleep for about an hour, in a chair, laying his head on a pillow on a table.

Saturday, Wifegrit had to work, so she got out of bed at 5:30, ate breakfast in the kitchen, took a shower, got dressed, and headed out to the hospital for her 12 hour shift in the mother/baby unit.

Calfgrit9 woke up before 7:00, came into our bedroom to let me know he was up, and then went down the kitchen to eat breakfast. I just continued to lay in bed for a while, until CG13 got home at about 7:30.

CG13 was tired, but happy from a night of fun. That was his first all-nighter. He has been to, and had, sleep-overs with friends before, but usually they do end up sleeping at least some of the night. As soon as he got upstairs, I put him right to bed. And he fell right to sleep.

This Saturday was a make-up school day for one of the snow days they had off earlier in the year. But we were letting CG13 skip this so he could participate in the lock-in Friday night, and sleep in Saturday. CG9, though, was going to school. So we got his stuff together in his backpack.

To kill some time until time to go, we shot some basketballs in our driveway. We have the basket up at the official 10′ height, so CG9 has to really get his whole body into every shot, and he does a pretty good job. He misses as much as he makes, but that’s pretty good for someone only 4′ tall and about 60 pounds.

At 8:45, I walked the little guy to school and wished him a fun time. It’d be only a half day, so I’d pick up at 12:35.

After that, I thought I’d get out and run an errand while CG13 continued to sleep. I went to Target and picked up a couple of items, and went to IHOP for a waffle breakfast. Then I went back to a quiet house. Perfect opportunity for a little personal quiet time. A mid-morning nap is a wonderful thing.

My phone alarm woke me up at noon. I got up, stretched, checked on CG13, (still sleeping), straightened up the kitchen, then headed out to walk to the school.

At the school, I stood out in the grassy “walkers’ point” with many other parents and waited for the bell to ring and the kids to be let out. I chatted with the dad of CG9’s friend for a bit, and then the kids came out. CG9 had a good day, and we talked about it on the walk back home.

CG13 had a trumpet practice at 1:30, so I had to wake him up before 1:00. We picked up lunch at a drive through on the way to the music school and ate it in my truck. CG9 and I sat through CG13’s practice, and then we all headed back home.

CG9 was anxious to get out and play with his neighborhood friends, and CG13 was wanting to just hang out alone in the house. He was still tired from the long night awake. And I was thinking about going for an afternoon run around the park lake behind our house.

At home, CG13 went up to his room. CG9 took their cell phone and went across the street to play with friends. And I changed into my running clothes. I stuck my head in CG13’s door to tell him I was going out running. I called CG9 on his phone to let him know, too. Then I took off.

The sun was warm, the air was fresh, and I ran and ran and ran, (with a couple of walk breaks, too). I ended up going for over an hour, [brag]burning 983 calories[/brag], according to my heart rate monitor. I wanted to keep going, to break through 1,000 calories, but CG9 wanted to bring his friends inside our house for a board game. (They can’t have friends inside the house unless there is a parent inside, also.) So I ended my run and let the boys inside.

While I had been out running, Wifegrit called to say she was getting off work early. Yay! She ran an errand right after and then came home. When she got here, we hung out a bit, sitting on the front porch, talking. Then we went inside and I made chicken and stuffing for dinner. We had a nice meal at the kitchen table. Afterward, the boys and I played an hour of Minecraft — I created a new survival server, and we had a big ball together.

Then we herded the boys into their showers. When they were finished, Wifegrit took over getting them into bed while I took my own shower. Yes, I had been a bit post-run stinky for a couple hours by this point. Such happens sometimes when one thing happens right after another during a family day. But I was all clean and fresh for bedtime.

Although it had been a very unusual Saturday, what with one boy sleeping in half the day, the other going to school, the wife working part of the day, and me getting over an hour of free running time, but it was a pretty good day. A pretty good day.

Bullgrit