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Welcome back.
M is for
Don’t cry over spilled Milk
Now define "milk". If it is the last cup you wanted for your cereal, or to bake a cake, it's no fun.
Personally I'm not a milk drinker, but I try to use the analogy for wine. It would certainly be a shame to spill wine. Especially in these desperate times.
Still, I don't think it would be dramatic for me to handle. We're not in South Africa, where alcohol has been banned during the pandemic. So one can always purchase a new bottle. If one has not had the foresight to build up a supply, that is.
Kidding aside. Most things are bearable and replaceable, except your health and your life.
Then there's hockey 🏒.
Looking back 15 months (and probably counting) I feel sad.
This has been Colin's season 2020/21 journey:
January: at the age of almost 12 years, he unexpectedly presented with symptoms suggesting chicken pox, which made him house-bound for two weeks. After recovering he trained and played for a good two or three weeks until...
February: during the last minutes of a game that they were about to lose anyway - so there was no reason for the opponent to charge him - he got a check to his head, resulting in a concussion.🤕 Boom. ER visit and out for another two weeks. If I remember correctly. he went back to practice for a two weeks' maximum when...
March: the grown-up team's franchise was finishing up their regular season and was just about to start the playoffs, when the first 😷 Corona-related precautions were taken: No events with more than 1,000 people attending, meaning ghost games. No audience! Junior games were announced to happen without visitors at first, but ultimately got canceled altogether.
April: this is when they have their regular time off, spring break, after-season, whatever it's called. Usually a good time to relax and enjoy the play-offs, but nope, they got canceled. With a full-blown lockout in place there was nowhere to go during school spring break. No outings, no shopping 🛍️, no zoo 🐆, no restaurants 🍝, not even a hair 💇🏼appointment.
May: The IIHF ice hockey world championship was supposed to be happening in my country🇨🇭! Everybody had been excited, and many people volunteered to help set everything up. It got canceled.
June: After several weeks of distance learning, elementary school kids went back to regular school, including PE. No masks required. For the sports teams, on the other hand, restrictions still applied, resulting in summer 👟 training being held via Zoom 💻! Parents were sent a shopping list. We had to procure elastic power-bands, agility coordination ladders, dumbbells 💪🏻, you name it.
July: Fortunately it was decided to still hold the annual hockey summer camp. Precautions and restrictions were taken very seriously. Upon meeting, staff took the kids' temperatures, and a handful of youngsters had to stay home.
August: a whole new chapter began, Colin started middle school. School vs practice schedule were not looking good. His teacher recommended we spoke to the principal 👨🏻🏫.
He invited us, the president of the school board plus two of Colin's new teachers, and they ended up deciding (against current practice) "OK, you'll get the chance to pursue your passion as long as you are taking care of homework and catching up on (on average 3 - 4) missed classes independently."
September: friendly games and first championship games were being held. Audience allowed, hooray! At this point things were looking good. I honestly thought we were headed towards back to normal.
October: Colin played what was going to be his last game on October 17. The following week, the championship got suspended. The adult (Swiss) national league began its championship. Almost every week one or two teams had to go into quarantine. Game schedules had to be adapted a lot. As I'm typing this (mid March) one team still has to catch up six games. Edited mid April: Not every team was able to fulfil the targeted number of games. Instead they got "awarded" the average number of points they achieved in the games they played all season.
November: Fortunately, for children younger than 15, practice was allowed to continue. They wore masks in the locker room and took showers 🚿 in small groups. Restaurants were still open (observing protective measures) so parents could wait at the sports bar 🍹. In order to make up for the missed championship games, our club set up "internal" games. Every other week the players within the training unit played against each other.
December: Another lockdown. Shops (except groceries) and restaurants had to close again. They even removed benches at the supermarket. There was literally nowhere to go during practice as we were not allowed access to the arena. It was cold ❄️ outside, too.
January: See above. The junior championship got officially cancelled.
February: See above. And just so you get an idea of the time investment we still made every single week, here's his schedule:
March: See above. Except kids are allowed to play against outside clubs again, so our coaches organized three friendly games. Yay! Still no audience though, and nothing open to wait. More bad take-out in the car 🚘 and overuse of my mobile data 📱. Last practice of the season on March 26.
April: Spring break. Adult league's Play-Offs started this Tuesday!
Now you can say, it was just a year, and he's still young, there'll be more seasons.
Yes, but this should have been a unique year because in his age group U13 there are still so many kids that they're divided into three performance categories, and he got to play in the middle group.
What's the difference? They get to play against a variety of teams within a larger geographical area (meaning 5am wake up calls and long travel times, so I'm not mad about missing out on this part) instead of the same old neighbour clubs.
As he progresses to U15 there'll only be two groups: the aspiring professionals and the regular players, so he'll be back to competing locally. He'll still have fun with his teammates, and that's the most important thing,
I just feel he got robbed of this unique year. Not just in hockey. Graduating from elementary school would usually come with fun activities like camps and parties. Same goes for his first year of Middle School. Plus as his school curriculum progresses, it'll be harder to get out of class early, and even if he'll get a free pass in the future, there will be more homework and study time to consider.
So forgive me for being grateful that we're alive and healthy but still crying over irretrievable times. The good news is: he's being totally realistic and understanding about it. "It is what it is".
How about you? What do you cry about if not milk?
Let me know in the comments, and please include the direct link to your own post, so I can easily visit.
Tomorrow let's remind ourselves that Networking is an enrichment program, not an entitlement program
Yay, a tough year for youngs, lockdown, no social life, no parties, all this is very difficult for them.
ReplyDeleteQuilting Patchwork & Appliqué
I'm with you on the spilt wine... way more cryable than milk. What a trooper Colin is for taking it as it comes.... but still such a disappointment to work so hard at something and to have it cancelled over and over again... poo poo on that. Hey thanks for visiting me today... I'm trying to get caught up from yesterday I 'm a little behind ... okay my behind is not little but you catch my drift. ha ha
ReplyDeleteCheers
Crackerberries
It's been a long, strange ride. I often feel my players begin to sink into thoughts of what wasn't, and it's fine to acknowledge that, I tell them. But when the whistle blows and we've beaten the odds to play, I'm plenty grateful for that.
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain. I have a disabled nephew who competes in Power Soccer using low-riding, motorized sports wheelchairs -- but their games, that range all over the Eastern U.S., have also been cancelled. Still, his immediate family and our extended family have survived the pandemic so far -- so there much to be grateful for. https://mollyscanopy.com/2021/04/margot-moose-and-ancestral-connections-atozchallenge/
ReplyDeleteFor a kid, I think it's a miserable business not being able to enjoy childhood things. Maybe it's enough to know other people are going through the same thing. I try not to think too much of the bad but who can help it?
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely day.
My son is grown and wasn't involved in sports (science and mechanical things were his thing) but, I know, if he had been school aged now, it still would have been hard for him and for us both. For how this generation in school will turn out years from now, we may want to look at history. I think they will be all right on the outside. On the inside may be a different story. Not because of disappointments (which can teach valuable lessons) but because of the overall trauma. Loss in youth can express itself in adulthood in strange ways. I think we are all going to be changed in ways we may not realize quite yet, young and old both.
ReplyDeleteWhen the lockdowns happened last year, I heard seniors wailing that they were missing all their senior stuff. Prom. Graduation. And all the stuff that goes along with that. So many lost out on times that they'll never get back. It's hard, and it's kind of sad.
ReplyDeleteSuch a rough year for everyone but especially children (and the elderly). They did miss out on so much. My oldest graduate college without a ceremony or any formal acknowledgement of her accomplishment. We threw her a zoom ceremony but it's not the same. It was so tough. These are times they will never get back.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I hear the phrase "don't cry over spilled milk" I think about the when I had a newborn in the house and after pumping so that I could leave a bottle for my husband so I could go out for a short break, it tipped over and spilled. Let me tell you, I did cry.
Weekends In Maine
This saying always reminds me of when I was a kid. The milkman would deliver our glass bottles of milk and my brother would always offer to collect them from the front door. Without fail, he always managed to drop one which smashed on the tiles. My mum would put on a brave face and reassure my brother he was trying to help so it was okay and then she'd have to clean up the glass and milk mess.
ReplyDeleteHow frustrating. Also, how not fun for you to have to sit in the car and wait. I'm kinda glad those days are over for me, although it was fun to watch my son play little league baseball.
ReplyDeleteJanet’s Smiles