Fall Break and things

The week got away from me! The girls had a short week at school and finished their first quarter in middle and high school. Both girls did such a great job with the transition and I'm proud of them. Because they had the day off on Friday, I took them up to Charlotte for a little shopping. They need some pants and it's difficult to fine ones that fit, so I thought we would have a great selection up there. Alas, we didn't hit much luck in that department so it's back to online shopping with buy, try and return. Not my fav, but I'm glad for the option. 

We also did some winter formal dress shopping for Anna. Let's just say, I'm returning this duty to Patrick. Anna as a teen, shopping for a dress is a frustrating experience for this mama. I just hope we can work out the communication and attitude before wedding dress shopping or else I'm gonna miss out on that too! Fortunately, we took a break and enjoyed some Cheesecake Factory after spending almost an hour in the Lego store. Hmm....not exactly what I went for, but we had a good time. 

Over the weekend, the girls got to carve their pumpkins at youth group. We did the scooping and prep at home so it felt like our normal tradition. Anna is so stuck on doing things the same way every year and I was like I am not buying 4 pumpkins! Things change and evolve and that's ok. 

We also took my car into the show to get the squeaking up front taken care of. A whole day later they replaced parts in another part of the car and the squeaking is still there. Somebody (I'm raising my hand right now) has said multiple times that it's the front suspension. Turns out it's the front suspension and they will be preplacing the struts this coming week since parts had to be ordered. Adulting. 

Anna is becoming more and more independent and enjoying her teen years. She went out with the XC girls to the corn maze on Sunday afternoon. Patrick drove her there and then decided to run his own 10K while he waited for them to be done. She also received a letter back from the SC Speaker of the House in regards to her school safety letters she sent a couple of weeks ago. It was actually a two page, personalized letter which she was impressed with. She's certainly finding her voice and using it in a productive way to make change. 

On Monday, Patrick took the day off to spend with the girls while I was working. They did various things around the house that needed to be done and Paige continued with her voice lessons. She and I have done lots of practicing of her lines and I'm always so amazed at how she can memorize things so quickly. She has to be off script in two weeks so that's a plus. 

Everybody was back at school Tuesday and things were going swimmingly until I got a call from the school nurse that Paige was sick. I went and got her and wow, she looked awful. We made it home before she threw up a couple of times. After that, she was fine. I went into full covid quarantine mode trying to make sure we could protect Anna who only has two weeks left in the season. I sprayed everything down, isolated Paige and moved Anna out of all shared spaces. Paige had not other symptoms so I ruled out Covid and flu. By the afternoon she was eating, perky and feeling much better. The whole thing was quite odd but I chalked it up to a stomach bug and waited for the rest of us to start feeling ill. Anna called from school Wednesday feeling nauseous, but by the time she got home she was fine. Turns out she just psyched herself out. 

So we kept Paige home Wednesday and Anna was home Wednesday. I was teaching and Patrick was holding down the fort, continuing to wipe stuff down because Anna had to run that afternoon at Regions. As I talked more to Paige that afternoon she started describing spots before she felt unwell. She said she couldn't see because of spots and then they went away. Then she felt a terrible headache and nauseous. Well, that helped me realize she actually had a migraine. Now she knows what to look for and we have a plan. I recall Anna getting headaches around this age and I'm pretty sure it's hormone related. Whew! I don't think any of us are sick!

Anna's region race went well. She came in 5th and PRed on the course. Funny, it's her fastest time at Region, but her worst finish because now our region is so tough. We have most likely the state champ in the race and a team that is at least top three. The nice thing is this is also the course for state, so she got to run it and knows what she needs to do to try for All State (top 15). State qualifiers are next week. 

And finally, I've been busy this week: grading 120 resumes, finished my last mental health seminar at BPC, got my covid booster, voted and wrangled all the people and their things. I'm doing lots of prep for upcoming holidays and birthdays, as well as Christmas shopping. Oh yeah....and I'm managing the leaves with my handy dandy blower when I have time. Ha!

Richland County Champs....kinda

On Tuesday, Anna ran in a race at Fort Jackson. One of the schools in Richland 1 invited all of the Richland 2 teams and it turned into a county championship race. I really liked being at the fort because it was so well organized and you could see the runners several times on the course. 

Anna was up against tough competition against our friends, the Ashleys. Emma goes to Westwood High School and now her little sister, Becca, is running as a 7th grader. These girls were all at CFI together and you may remember that they did Patrick's run club eons ago. It's always fun to watch the girls run together because they often push each other to better times. Emma is having an amazing season this year and has broken 19 minutes. We're so proud of her! 

So you can imagine, Anna and Emma were racing it out at the beginning and then Emma pulled away from Anna. Becca meanwhile, trailed closely on Anna and stayed on her. We were all shocked, including her parents! She was having such a great race and giving Anna a run for her money. Anna did finish in front of Becca and Emma was almost a full minute in front of Anna, breaking 19 again this season. Both Becca and Anna came in under 20, a first for Becca as a 7th grader. That was so exciting to watch. Meanwhile, two more BHS girls and friends of Anna's, Eva and Mal, finished 4th and 5th. All that to say, the Blythewood area represented strong AND Patrick had coached the top 5 girls at some point. Too funny!

At the end of the race, we found out that Richland 1 decided that it was NOT going to be a county championship and really they had just invited our teams for no real reason. BHS ended up winning the meet on the girls side which made them county champs, but they decided not to award our girls the top prize and instead give it to the top Richland 1 team. They didn't even announce a top Richland 2 team. They also only gave our girls ribbons while they awarded the others girls medals. It was the funniest and strangest thing! In the end our girls were so excited about beating the team they came to beat that they didn't even care and are now laughing hysterically about their kinda, not really, but actually we did win. Don't worry...Patrick ordered them all some medals as a consolation prize. 

Up next: region championship, state qualifier and then STATE! 

Hispanic Heritage Celebration and Breaking more records

Anna had another meet on Wednesday night at Rock Hill and it was an epic fail. The weather was going to turn so they got up their quickly and started the race quickly. She and the rest of the team didn't want to be there anyway and proceeded to have bad attitudes. Let's just say it showed in their running. Nobody had great times and they pretty much embarrassed themselves. I had tried to warn Anna to get her head on right and set a good example, but she didn't listen. In the end, Patrick gave them all a good tongue lashing and then spent the rest of the week working on positive mindset. He even put together a playlist with contributions from each of the girls. That was practice this week. Hard work and get your mind out of the gutter. 

Meanwhile, on Saturday morning we got to go to Paige's school for Hispanic Heritage Celebration where Paige and a few other 6th graders led us in learning the Bachata dance. It was a fun learning celebration with lots of kids teaching us about Hispanic culture. Paige did a great job confidently speaking and then demonstrating the dance to the audience. She really is enjoying her dance class and I love seeing her try new things. It was fun for us to show up and cheer her on in something she was doing. 

After a little bit of time at home, we headed to Greenville for the Starlight Invitational in Greenville. Saturday meets are usually run during the morning so runners can see, obviously. But this one was at night on a loop that the runners had to complete three times. It was lit by the football stadium and baseball/softball lights with a darker patch through the woods. The nice thing is Paige and I could sit in the stands and watch the runners pass 4 times before finishing. We dropped off Anna and Patrick to help with the JV race and then headed to dinner for fajitas. She had never gotten fajitas before so it really surprised and delighted her. 

After a very creative parking job on a curb of grass that was no more than a foot wider than my car, we managed to settle in for a couple of hours. Anna and the varsity girls ran at 8pm in the mid-level race, with a narrow cut off from the elite race. They had their minds set on getting a plaque which only goes to the top 2 teams. Anna also wanted to break the school record. Both were within their reach, but I knew it would be a stretch. 

Well, they all got out really fast which is something Patrick has been working on all season. It finally clicked! Anna was out front early with two other girls in the lead pack. They dropped one girl and then it was a battle between Anna and the other girl. While we could see them going around, we didn't see them for a portion of the loop and it was fun to hear the play by play from the announcer as he could see them come out of the woods. A few times, he would announce: the Blythewood girl is out front, to which Paige and I jumped up and down. Some sweet fans next to us realized this was my child and then yelled her name for us too. 

With the final entrance on to the track, we saw the other girl in the lead as Anna wasn't able to hold her off. But because they had been battling, Anna was being pulled to a really fast time. We didn't realize how fast until she crossed the finish line a full 35 seconds in front of her PR! Her last PR was 19:54 and she finished 2nd, with a time of 19:19. The school record was 19:40 which was blown up! We were yelling so loud for her at the end and it was so exciting to see each of the girls sprint it in for their PRs. 

In the end, the girls team placed 2nd place overall in their race and won the plaque. Anna would have finished 12th in the elite race, with only 6 other 5A girls in front of her. She is now ranked 12th overall in the state for 5A and earned a national elite time this week. She now has her mind set on sub-19 which I would have found out of her league until yesterday. Both these girls of mine never cease to amaze me. 

Following a late night celebration at the meet, we drove an hour to my parent's house to spend the night. Some old family friends were also in town and it was great to catch up with them at breakfast. My dad whipped up an amazing spread to do a late celebration for my birthday, which was really sweet. It was a quick but nice visit. 

By the way, my birthday was great! The fam celebrated me with gifts and cakes. Friends and family sent messages and I even got to go to book club. A couple of Anna's friends came over Friday night to help us eat all the cake we had, thankfully. So it's been an eventful and fun week!

Flowers from my hubs

A charcuterie board??

I spy some early Halloween costumes!

The amazing Paige

We are back on track and doing well around here. Lest you wonder how Anna is doing in class, I saw these pictures last Friday as kids and teachers came back together. Other than a fire alarm going off at school on Monday, everybody we know seems to be coping well following last week's events. Anna also managed to run a 20:02 at Coach's Classic this past weekend. She was mad about not breaking 20, but that was a course PR for her and she was the 14th 5A girl so I'd call it a win! The girls even painted their hair pink in honor of breast cancer month. Better than last year when I bought the $50 spandex shorts that looked awful on them and sent no money to breast cancer research. 

Now on to Paige!! She has been living her best life lately. She went on a field trip to a raptor center last week and LOVED it. They got to ride on fancy buses and even crossed the state border. She talked all about the many species of birds she saw when she returned. She's also made several friends at school and they seem to be creating some sort of business. Paige is selling mini-erasers.  

She's also been busy auditioning for Annie Jr., a musical that is run through Freeway Music and is practicing at our church. She decided to not do the fall production with the Columbia Children's Theater because it fell on her birthday and she wants a party this year. A little while later I heard about this opportunity and was sold when I found out they are practicing just 6 minutes up the road. Done! The performance is also in December so that helps. 

They spent three days auditioning with a small group of kids, just 17 total. I know she can act for sure, but the singing is not an area she's got a lot of experience in other than as a group in her other productions. So, I wasn't sure how this was going to go, but knew it would be a great chance for her to grow as she was bound to get a role with some solo singing just based on numbers. Well, I'm shocked. She landed THE role! She's going to be Annie! Needless to say, we were all thrilled for her. I've actually lined up some voice lessons with Madison so she can get some extra practice. Here she is learning she got the lead when I picked her up from school. 

I've loved spending some solo time with her lately as Anna does her own high school things. The other night we donned face masks and painted our toes. She's maturing in lots of ways this year. I'm so proud of the progress she's making and continuing to make especially around the area of perfectionism. 

And to end the happy post off right...I got to spend some time with two of my friends who celebrated my birthday. We love to get together for cake and just chat it up. These two are such an encouragement to me and they know how to love me well. 

The hoax with real consequences

On Wednesday morning, we experienced one of the most terrifying moments I have ever had as a parent. While I was teaching my first class at USC, I started receiving texts from Anna regarding a lockdown in her school. They had recently changed the language between lockdown, lockout, etc. and I didn't fully realize the severity of the situation until I started receiving more panicked texts from her. Her classroom was the closest class on the 2nd floor to the main entrance of the school and she and her classmates watched terrified from the windows as 6 police cruisers raced to the front of the building, sirens blaring. The officers jumped from their vehicles, grabbed AR15s from the trunks and rushed into the school. At that point, an announcement came on and the students and teachers began locking and barricading doors, hiding, finding things they could use as weapons, texting and calling their parents and even recording goodbye videos in the event their bodies were found. Around 100 officers total showed up with in mere minutes. I am not making this up. 

While I paused my class to furiously text Anna, Patrick and another mama, my heart was racing trying to figure out what was going on. Her texts became more escalated and also paused at certain moments which I latter found out was because Patrick called her. She said she was going to run and he called to say not unless you are told to, but she needed to stay behind the locked and barricaded door until they cleared them. He was able to keep her calm and tell the students to get away from the windows. Somewhere in this timeline, Patrick received information that other schools in the state had earlier experienced a similar situation just that morning and it was a hoax. We were only the 3rd school at this point, so we really had no idea what was going on, but it did make us feel slightly better and calmed Anna as well as other teachers Patrick was texting. 

Officers came and banged on Anna's classroom door, yelled at the students to put their hands up and run toward the stadium. Anna complied obviously and then found herself face to face with two lines of officers in full tactical gear armed with AR15s pointing at them while they yelled for students to run. Never in my life have I been so glad she is the fastest. She beat her class to the stadium and said she probably ran her fastest 100 meters yet. 

All students, teachers and staff were cleared from the building in this manner. Some who had hands in their pockets or who had reached to grab something from their backpacks were quickly greeted with guns in their faces and instructions to get on the ground. It was around this time we learned for real that it was a hoax, but none of the people at the school knew this. 

As my first class ended and my second one began, I ran up to my boss' office to get coverage for my classes and ended up losing it in front of her not know what was going on. The feelings of panic were very real, even learning at that point it was a hoax. My brain was having a hard time comprehending all that was happening. I started my next class and then realized I needed to leave to get Anna. They were bussing them to a reunification point which later changed to just staying at the high school stadium where they all got sunburned sitting hours in the sun. Some passed out from lack of hydration and low blood sugar because it was well past lunch. 

Driving to the school I was able to voice text and talk to several other parents, Patrick and some teachers at the school. I also reached out to family really quick in case they heard it on the news. By this point I knew Anna was safe and much calmer. It turns out Ashley had actually been passing the high school as the first cop cars zoomed past her so she posted up nearby and was able to give me a play by play. She also got in the parent pick up line much earlier than me and we thought she might be able to pick Anna up too as she is an emergency contact for her. That didn't happen, but I made it work and was able to get to Anna after a couple of hours. 

She was burned, calm but upset and talking a mile a minute about her experience. She sat with a good friend who needed her at the time which I loved. Even in the midst of difficult times she was helping. We immediately drove to Sonic to get some ice cream because we were starving and in need of comfort food. I'm glad I was driving as she told me the details because hearing them come from her mouth was difficult. 

Other stories I heard:

-Rusty carried a student on crutches with the help of another teacher as they ran to the stadium.

-Trauma centers nearby stopped all elective surgeries and began preparing ORs and trauma rooms for gunshot victims. 

-A teacher told her students to grab their bags, put their chairs on the desks and then hide in the closet while she put a note on the door saying they were in the library. 

-A group of middle school students on campus for a program was rushed to the auditorium and then police came in on the catwalks above and yelled at them to put their hands up. Anna's friend, Brantley, was among them and we were trying to relay information to her mother and my friend, Megan as she wasn't getting updates being in middle school. 

-Administrators donned bulletproof vests to run back into the building. 

-The first officers arrived at the school within a minute and 29 seconds. And they didn't stop coming. 

-The teacher whose phone was the one used for the spoofed call was rushed upon by officers and the SROs who know him to be questioned about where the guns were at. He had no idea because there was no phone call from his room. 

-Doors and walls were written on after police officers cleared them and then the marker had to be scrubbed off. 

-A teacher got trampled by a student and was injured.

-Kids were in the fetal position crying and calling their parents to say goodbye.

It was absolutely terrifying. 

Meanwhile Patrick immediately got on the phone with the Governor's Office, State Superintendent and the media. He did media interviews and made it clear how upsetting this is and how the Safey Coalition he had put in place two months earlier was designed to help prevent things like this, but we were too busy fighting made up stuff like CRT. He was on the news several times that night and railed against social media as we later found out it was a TikTok challenge. 

In the end, everybody is safe and there was no active shooter, but everything about that day was very real. It's a strange feeling because you think you should be OK knowing it wasn't real. But we all experienced fight or flight, emotions, thoughts and panic. The kids were given an asynchronous day yesterday. Teachers, including Patrick, arrived in the morning to receive trauma counseling and debrief. Patrick said it was emotional. I took Anna and Madison out to breakfast and some fun errands. 

Then Anna came home and made chocolate chip cookies for her teachers. We delivered them along with hugs that afternoon. I'm glad we could go back that afternoon when it was quieter and Anna could talk out what had happened as she pointed to where she hid and was going to grab a lamp as a weapon. It was hard for her to go back, but she's processing well. Today they are all back on campus and it will be a gentle and easy day. Patrick was the first one to have students in front of him for his early bird class and was able to process with them. 

I also had to pick up Paige from school and give her just enough information to tell her to give space to her sister, but also not frighten her. Thankfully she had play practice and was gone for a couple of hours in the evening. We were all exhausted and not hungry. I couldn't even think of what to make for dinner! 

We learned 14 counties in SC were affected by hoax calls to elementary, middle and high school. That's thousands of families impacted by terrifying circumstances. I'm thankful that's all it was, that law enforcement did exactly what they needed to do and we have a wonderful community at the school. But I would be OK if that never happened again. Hopefully, Anna's letters will help make a difference.