Exhausto-pants

OK, before moving along, let me explain that title.  At some point as the kids were learning to talk, I unconsciously created the suffix "-pants".  I think it started with fussy babies, calling them "crankypants".  Embarrassingly, I think I used to call my middle child "Maxipants".  And I'm sure Caroline has been Miss Sassypants once or twice.  As they talked more and acted silly, I would tell them they or an activity were "crazypants".  And of course we were all thrilled every time we watched Frozen and heard Kristoff try calm a wound up Princess Anna by saying, "Hey, ho, hold on there feistypants."

So, obviously, when we are overtired, we are "exhaustopants".

The kids started talking about wanting to see a basketball game.  They pointed out that they'd been to baseball games (both at the Giants and A's a the major league level and at the San Jose Giants), and they'd been to a football game, but they'd never been to a basketball game.  They also said they wanted to go to a "soccerball" game.  So the next day, we watched a Warriors game on tv.  The kids watched for a while, focusing on the team's colors and digesting that we were rooting for the "white team" (it was a home game - wear your Warriors white!)

I couldn't arrange for them to see a soccerball game, but there was one final big Friday basketball game at Sequoia for the season, though it was actually on Thursday before a Friday holiday.  So I picked the kids up from school, slid them into their Sequoia tshirts from the football game we'd gone to (lucky for us, the game was against rival Carlmont, again, so the "Beat Carlmont" message on the back was appropriate), and hit the road back to Redwood City.

When we first arrived, we took a tour around campus, including seeing the swimming team practice. Then we moved on to the baseball fields to visit Mommy's friend (and classroom-mate) Carlos as he coached JV Soccer.  Carlos chatted with the kids for a while with the boys excited to answer all his questions and Caroline content to peek at him behind my legs.  I learned that their favorite sports are baseball and soccerball.  That Max thinks he likes the “blue team”, though when pressed, he said he liked the Giants.  He was also emphatic that he likes the football team with number 41, which Carlos was able to decipher as the 49ers.  As an added bonus, the baseball team was also working out and as we left the field, Caroline ran over to pick up a ball that had gotten away and throw it back to the boys on the infield (succeeding at throwing it over to deep short) and that made three teams we had seen so far. 

Then it was through the middle of campus to check out the mural and on to the water fountain.  We poked our heads in to the warm up for the wrestling match, followed by a moment or two at the girls varsity soccer game, and finally onto the snack bar at the basketball game.

Checking out the mural

As we ordered hotdogs and Sprites, the kids were spotted by a handful of the JV cheerleaders.  The girls squealed when they saw the boys and asked if they were twins.  When they learned they were triplets, the squeals mounted.  Caroline turned shy again, but the boys were immediately in their element, babbling on to them about where they go to school and who their mommy is.  I turned my back for a moment and Daniel had weaseled candy out of the cheerleaders who were in a semi-circle beaming at them.

Max and Daniel holding court

We went inside to sit in the gym.  It was the second half of the boys’ JV game and we did a fair amount of yelling “GO SEQUOIA!”  As the third quarter ended, Caroline asked if we could move to sit closer to “the cheer girls”, so we slid to the other end of the gym.  We sat in front of  one of my students who gave Daniel a whole bag of chips (even though Caroline pointed out that eating in the gym is "breaking the rules"). 

Sitting by the "cheer girls"

Hanging out in the stands with Mommy

A bunch more "GO SEQUOIA!" then choruses of, "I wanna go now," as the game ended so off we went to see the tile mural by the pool, then back to the other mural, then back to run around on the football bleachers, back to the gym to climb on the security cart, and finally back in the car to head to Burger King for smoothies and fries. 

Finding all the Nemos and Ariels in the tile mural

Playing hide and seek on campus

Max and Caroline fell asleep in the car and Daniel chatted with me until we hit the City at which point he was zonked out too.  This meant when I came home I had a bunch of trips up and down the stairs.  The first two trips were to bring in all of our stuff.  Then one kid at a time, as they woke up as they were jostled out of the chair into my arms, then fell back asleep somewhere in the living room.  And then I juggled them into diapers and pajamas and bundled them off to bed.

Now that is exhausto-pants

And the best part of all was that I had a holiday the next day and the kids were going to school for their Valentines party!