Life is pretty crazy. Still getting used to the 5am practices every morning -- getting home at 8:45 at night and trying desperately to sleep and not nap during the day is a hard adjustment. I've also been really pursuing more freelance work (or a job), which has kept me a bit busier in the midst of school and unpacking. FWIW, we did find our silverware last weekend (only took two weeks and an unknown quantity of boxes... they were packed with 2 jars of powdered peanut butter, 1/12 of my large soup/salad bowls; a bag of my husband's books for work, 2 empty back packs and doll bed bedding...basically random items from around the house like so many other boxes we're opening (making things take that much longer!!) Today: 5AM practice AP Testing followup Calls (for work) Freelance job that came in last night College application work for Ponygirl reading (for work) prep for coaching tonight make carne asada (freeze half for later) -- we now have carne asada and shredded adobo chicken for "make your own quesadillas" (everyone in my house is at an age they can self-serve this during lunch... clean out the fridge three loads of laundry get ready to head to NC DO NOT, under any circumstances, fall asleep.

I've really been up since 4am... the late shower/reading in bed for an hour notwithstanding. Now, I'm either enjoying 2nd breakfast or 1st lunch...not sure how that goes yet. Swim Practice (5-7), complete with 2 cups of coffee Work on freelance job (finished & turned in) Shower/Read Computer time with 2nd breakfast (more caffeine) Apply for jobs. Follow up on leads. Unpack/sort more boxes (believe it or not, I am making progress on this) Menuplan for next week Prep for Swim Practice (coaching) tonight Coach BED

I think Ponygirl would kind of freak about gaining 3 inches! One more would put her in the range of "normal" based upon her growth patterns as a child, still shorter, but massively so. Her older brother is a bit jealous (he's still 3 inches off where he was expected to be, at 20. He started growing late, too, but stopped around age 18. Maybe if he kicks something into high gear his spine will grow, too! PokeMan started growing earlier, we're still waiting for his legs to catch up with his back...but he just turned 16, so we'll see!! She was on the earlier side for my family (1 week shy of her 13th birthday). Blondie will probably register on the underweight BMI due to her body type, growth, and swimming when she sees the doctor this fall -- and will be on the late side (although we've been prepared for awhile).

She is, but her average level of training was significantly less prior to the growth spurt (She's gone from averaging 18 hours of practice per week to 25...)

Whew -- well, so while not the norm, at least she is in good company! What makes this particularly funny is her 13yo sister is currently growing really fast (she's gone from 4'11 to 5'1 this summer. Before we left Italy, we had chatted about how Blondie might be taller than her by now... but now PonyGirl is growing, too 🤣

Ponygirl is 17. She never had a growth spurt. She sat at 5'2 from the age of 15. She is now 17 1/2. Since moving back to the states, she's grown an inch. Coincidentally, her forehead starting breaking out like a young teen entering puberty. Once I find a doctor, I think we'll be bringing this up. Weird.

Actually, the girl I'm describing was a high school student (also an assistant coach, who happened to be 18 at the time).

Absolutely -- it is wrong. In the case (as described and adjudicated), the official in this scenario was blatantly wrong. Moreover, the official didn't follow proper procedure, either (no one seems to know if the offense took place prior to the event (in which case, the coach should have been notified and the girl given a chance to correct it), during the event (umm... yeah, that's a suit malfuction, not intention, so outside the scope of the rule) or after the event (in which case, it's the same result as prior to the event). In no way, shape or form should the girl in the article have been DQd for it.

They do make training 2-pieces. The tops are built more like sports bras, the bottoms usually have a tie to help keep them tight. I have never seen anyone compete in them, only train. For the most part, one pieces work fine for training. But, I don't disallow 2 pieces (at least not in the pools I have run). I did provide examples to the parent(s) who were interested of acceptable 2-piece suits (their daughter was growing really fast... 9 inches in one year...couldn't keep her in a one piece).

Well, USAS now has a bevy of rues we're supposed to enforce with differing age athletes (it's actually using things created nationwide across multiple sports). I foresee many headaches (I'm actually grateful to be primarily coaching 12U, (although, I will be petitioning to help on deck with the 14O, since I'm there anyway). I don't police my girls bodies -- but we do talk about dressing appropriately for what you intend to be doing. Often times, some girls don't think about potential for malfunctions that the vast majority would be embarrassed by (some don't care -- nothing I can do about that). But how we act and dress is part of nonverbal communication. We tell people a lot about ourselves through our manner and clothing. We should be conscious of that fact. For example, right now I'm clearly communicating by my dress that I am not going anywhere and would prefer to be in bed... but instead I'm preparing for my class tomorrow morning that somehow sneaked up on me. I will change into my coaching garb later. But for now, I'm homebound mom 😄 I am very uncomfortable with clothing standards that aren't somewhat uniform in application. If a man's butt crack isn't supposed to be viewed, neither should a woman's. If a man's junk shouldn't be visible when in a dive position, a woman's should not be exposed either. If a suit is sized down so small that the shoulder strap is acting like a pasty -- there is a problem with the suit sizing -- which should be addressed with the coach (I'm not sure how that helps anyone's performance...makes my shoulders hurt from seeing it). But the answer is certainly not a whatever-whenever attitude.

This would rub me the wrong way. One standard. Tank tops are fine for boys, they are fine for girls.

It was summer rec league, they usually hire high school assistant coaches. I currently coach on deck with college swimmers (assisting me). All of our lead coaches or above are all post-grads or mature adults with lots of grey hair...

Some men are dawgs... no way around it. They haven't been taught -- and that's a failing that needs to be addressed, or they simply are dirty old men who don't care about polite society (:shudder:). At the beginning of swim season, (when I was the head coach), I'd hold a parent meeting. I told ALL parents to check their kids' suits. Suits wear out in different ways -- loose fitting suits may be more comfortable OUT of the water, but what goes up, will also pull down with the weight of water (If you can pull a girl's suit straps up to the top of her head, the top of the suit can also stretch down). Similarly, boys' suits often first show wear in the butt crack. When the suit is on and dry it may look fine -- ask the boy to bend over into a dive position and suddenly you can see *everything.* Suit problems are suit problems. Ponygirl is small chested, larger hips and rear. It is so hard finding a suit that fits -- but we know there are some styles that are just really bad, so we avoid them. She also hates wedgies and fixes them. She wears shorts around the pool deck, because she's more comfortable in them. At major competitions, she brings a sweatshirt, and goes topless underneath (pulls her tech suit down half-way). I don't get upset about suit problems. They are part and parcel for the course (unfortunately). The story from AK was disturbing on many levels (the swim wedgie doesn't bug me -- you can tell the difference between a fit issue and someone intentionally hiking their suit). The photographing, and targeting was awful.

I spent all summer with a young coach (18) who hiked her suit up to her butt crack, and walked around the deck in that manner (she was not in and out of the water -- she was coaching on the pool deck with a hiked-up suit). If she attempted to do that this season, she would be in violation of safe sport rules -- rules she would have to sign and agree to in order to participate in the sport with anyone under the age of 18. As a coach -- we are supposed to be protecting our swimmers from both known and unknown dangers. Girls who are hiking up their suits to "get attention" and the parents who support, ignore, or otherwise blow off this behavior can't have it both ways. You can't simultaneously not care about them seeking attention for their bodies and also be upset when they receive the attention they are seeking from people they don't want it from. Sure, she may be trying to attract the attention of the 18yo hot guy on the team, but complaining that the 18yo pimply-faced, string-bean, lifeguard said something instead is a double standard on the part of the girl. The attention you are seeking does not suddenly become "bad" because it is not coming from the person(s) you are trying to attract. Either the attention is wrong, or it's okay. And this has nothing to do with modesty culture. I don't like that term. I think "modesty" is thrown around in ways it was never meant to be -- as certain girls could dress in a sack from neck to ankle and be immodest. However, we should be teaching our children to dress appropriately for the situation --- and if they are running to fashions that are not appropriate, it is time to dig deeper and explore the why behind the desire. We need to teach our girls to be honest with themselves about why they are doing something -- it's also part of teaching them how to be an individual and figure out what they like and why they like it. It's no different than my telling my girly-13-yo that she couldn't shave half her head (one of her friends did, and she wanted to -- basically, it came down to this -- if you can explain to me WHY you want to shave half your head, I'm open to talk about it -- but if you are only want to shave half your head because so-and-so did, my answer is no. Now, I will say that manufacturers bear some responsibility -- as a team, we ordered suits from Finis, and the mens' suit was cut WAY too low -- the boys even complained. We complained to Finis as well (to no avail). As for knee-skin style suits and jammers -- these are available year round -- what supposedly makes the tech suits more expensive is the type of fabric and the water resistant treatment. They do make knee-length suits (usually for old people, like me). And, yes, the fact is, they COULD make less expensive knee-length competition suits. Yingfa does (around $70 -- and this is a tech suit, small modifications could be made so that it is within the rules of not being a tech suit), others could too. Additionally, there are custom suit manufacturers (Agon, for example) that have several different styles of suits that can all be manufactured in the same design. These suits are no more expensive than the in-season competition suits from Speedo (about $59 for a women's suit). There are other choices out there.

Unfortunately, the intentional hiking of suits up to create a wedgie has become more and more of a thing. Girls ask each other in the locker rooms if it's "high enough." If coaches don't tell swimmers to "fix their suit" we get reamed, if we tell swimmers to "fix their suit" we're perverts. The new training has also created more issues, as we have 18yo athletes exposing their bare bums to 17 & U, violating rules. IMO, team suits should be available in different cuts/styles to suit multiple body types. Wear the one that fits YOU (and yes, I took heat for allowing an 11yo to wear a 2 piece training suit to practice, because she was growing so rapidly, she was needing new suits every couple of weeks -- she went from 5'-5'9 in 9 months -- I couldn't do anything about the racing one-piece rules). Jolyn suits should probably be banned (HA! it's all THEIR fault...jk). We just ordered my girls' new team suits... one of them is titled "girls skimpy suit" very open back, high cut legs (imo, this suit is not suitable for curvy girls, ponygirl would die if I bought her that! Blondie wouldn't bat an eye. But at least there are 3 female suit options).

Selke -- I"m so sorry about your pet 😞 Unpack suitcases in my bedroom Clear upstairs hallway of not sure whatever it is piled there Either get the owners of these socks in this basket disbursed, or I swear, I'm just throwing the pile of them away. Keep attempting to get through boxes, and do SOMETHING with the contents (yes, that includes packing it back up and setting it aside). Swim practice (still about 6 hours of my day...) Encourage college boy to not quit, and not let fear rob him of things he is fully capable of doing. We started a NEW routine this week. Each kid is doing their own laundry. They each have an assigned day (dh and I share, and the two youngest share, because they are in the same room). Dirty clothes stay in their rooms until their wash day -- they wash/dry/put away their own things. Two days a week are for towels. I'm tired of the baskets of socks and underwear that are always unclaimed. We have a washer and dryer that allows us to complete laundry tasks quickly, so everyone should be able to do this.

It must be Monday. Turn hot water off (one of our bathroom faucets hot water broke, so hot water to the house is off until DH gets home with a part to fix it). Clean refrigerator (glass jug of milk tried to freeze and burst all over the refrigerator) Dog to the vet (emergency refill of meds...) On to our regularly scheduled programming: Prep for teaching swim tonight Send DH his pick-up schedule for girls Work on contacts for Boy Scouts (DS) Spend two hours unpacking/repacking/making our list of broken things....well, going on 90 minutes left today. Wash towels (I found the rest of my towels! Still can't find the cleaning stuff...killing more and more trees with all of the paper towels we're using). My kitchen is 75% clean (that's way up from yesterday's 50%) I hope to find the cubby cubes soon, so I can put DH's socks, underwear and t-shirts away -- as they are currently taking up my dresser and I can't unpack -- He gets the closet, I'm supposed to get the dresser, but since he has to dress for work, and I can wear mostly shorts and t-shirts -- his clothing is getting priority).

My son's commute is 30 minutes, door to door (maybe a bit more in the afternoon going home, if traffic is an issue). I had to walk that far in the 90s to get from my senior dorm to the classrooms...in a dress and heels. He attends Old Dominion University. If DS had said he didn't want to swim, I'd be fine with it. He wants to swim, but felt like his schedule and what he thought about DH and my schedule made it too difficult (he didn't ask us, just made assumptions). He also hadn't had one normal week. He based everything off of how he was feeling the two major weeks of extra meetings (and 18,000 pounds of household goods being dumped on us -- which he hasn't actually had much to do with). He's currently upstairs playing online games, and has been doing so for several hours (that's another nerve pretty raw right now).

DS had a very rough first week (this is week #2) -- he made a snap decision on Tuesday because of it, and wasn't upfront with us about certain things, because he was afraid of disappointing us (found out there has been some deception about what his plans really are, did NOT chastise him for having different goals, but of not being honest about them. After all, our advice is only as good as the information we have from him!! So, a bit GRRR). He sat down with his swim coach and told her he didn't think he had the time to swim. He had too much on his plate. 😱 I flat out asked him if he really wanted to swim (don't tell me what you think I want to hear, tell me how you truly feel). He said he does. He loves to swim -- he just felt that with his dad having to drive him in and pick him up, on top of his classes & work-study obligations, he thought it was going to be too much for US and HIM to juggle (he didn't ask us BTW). Scholastically, he has a very easy schedule. DS has some confidence issues (has felt like he was "dumb" since about 6th grade -- has always hated to struggle, associates struggle with failure, doesn't seem to realize it's not about how much one struggles, but the mastering the work and completion that determines success in a course). He signed up for Precalc (he took Calc 1 two years ago, it was a struggle, but he got an "A"). He finished all of the Precalc assignments for the next two weeks in about three hours. He was so surprised at how easy it is (insert mom-eye-roll here). DH and I are going to sit down with him again (Sat or Sun) and walk through the things that have him worried, and see if there is a way for him to "undo" Tuesday's fiasco. Sometimes academic counselors don't do kids any favors by simply telling them to quit something, agreeing with their feelings without any context (it doesn't help that DS was stressing himself out because of how he thought DH and I might be feeling -- because he didn't ask us). A week of welcome for athletes is also much more stressful than for other kids (lots of extra events/required meetings), and then add a HUGE move into the mix as a commuting student, forgetting a quiz because of it (quizzes are 7% of the final grade). There was a ton happening his first week and a half in school -- but that (for him) is pretty much all settled down and eased up. His classes are going well. I think he is a bit too consumed with his Chemistry work (He is spending an inordinate amount of time outlining chapters -- methinks he's being a bit TOO thorough, but his sister went through that with AP Bio -- so he has to find the balance between too much and good enough). His academic adviser told him that for every 1 hour of class, he should have 3-4 hours of study time (He's in class 15 hours, but two of those are recitations -- which ARE study time, and one is a career building class that is part of his scholarship). That study time also assumes challenging courses. If he can do 2 weeks of Precalc in 3 hours... I don't think he's going to need another 9 hours this week to study for that class, do you? It's been a week. He really likes the school. It's a good fit. He likes his classes, he likes his professors, he likes his teammates. He doesn't like morning classes (oh well -- you gotta be there at 0600 anyway...) He is, for the most part, doing a good job figuring things out. He just has to realize that just because the decisions are his, it doesn't mean he has to figure it all out alone -- and that his dad and I are here to support him and advise him -- but we can't do either without knowing what's going on (and no, we haven't called, emailed or otherwise interfered with anything or anyone at the school -- if he decides to go back to the swim coach and do the I'm sorry, I was feeling really overwhelmed because of our move, the long days of meetings during week of welcome, and I was just extra tired because of not having a good bed to sleep on for a few nights -- and I really, really want to swim, may I please come back?) That's on him.

A quick update... the AP Biology professor has been completely unresponsive to any form of contact over the past three weeks. We can't continue waiting -- so we have found some alternatives (an adult who worked on deck with her as she helped teach/lead swim practice as Captain -- also a USNA grad, and a scout leader who will talk about her community leadership, volunteering to help the Boy Scouts raise money for summer camp and various Eagle Projects (she was not a scout). We've really reached into as many barrels as we can at this point (we'll continue to work on other things for applications with later due dates -- but the NROTC and Nomination Packets really need to get sent in now.

I'm up... that's got to count for something. Hurricane hasn't knocked out our power or internet (yet?). I think our air handler is louder than the storm right now. Debate class at 0700. More Unpack/photograph/list broken things/repacking to do. Living Room -- get furniture set as best as we can. Check boxes for breakage, remove to the dining room. Family Room -- organize what is in there (open/stack/move out of the way -- any decor to the Dining room/kids stuff to the upstairs) Sunroom -- essentially empty and start over. Move bins that go to the garage to the now accessible garage. Move boxes that are books in from the garage to stack in the Sunroom. My room -- start unpacking clothing as best as we can. Hopefully, get my desk set up (I'm hoping we find the legs today :D) ETA: Yeah, this is going to take a lot longer than I'd like. The combination of mental exhaustion and physical exhaustion after days of physical exhaustion are taking their toll... that and this job is a lot more than I bargained for. I think we may get the family room "done" tomorrow (if we're lucky). The process of the kids working on their rooms and doing the Living Room, constantly having to determine if these items go here or there, if it's something we want or if we are going to get rid of it to further reduce clutter, cluttered up the Family Room to the point we just have a small walking path. I had to start running towels and blankets. I'm too tired to get more done today. I keep putting off decisions, because I just don't know where things are going (still haven't found the book shelf hardware, but my husband was able to fix one couch and get the projector/media server set up -- family is watching Shazzam! I'm going to bed soon. I'm just beat.

And here I was all set to start being healthy. Yesterday, I just wanted donuts. I don't even really like donuts. But, eating my feelings... yeah, I've been prone to do that once or twice (one time, I drank an entire bottle of wine in about 2 hours and went to bed... you have to keep in mind that in the roughly 48 years prior, I had maybe had drunk enough wine to fill one bottle). No power means we'll continue moving stuff around to try to figure out what to unpack. We haven't actually unpacked much more -- working on bedrooms at the moment, getting clothes kind of put away. The kitchen counters are still covered with I don't know what. Most of the items are going to need to go back into a box until we can figure out what to do with them (you could also read that as... until my furniture is put together, fixed or replaced).

I bought chocolate. It's sitting next to me. I'm currently working on a table that is also holding a television, because we can't put together my desk, because we don't know where the legs are (I had to finish prepping for my 6am class tomorrow -- assuming the weather doesn't leave me powerless and without internet). In other news, we found the remaining shelves to my DAUGHTER'S corner shelving units in a box in the garage labeled "tools." 🤦‍♀️ We can now at least walk through the garage. Still a long, long way to go. We still haven't found our flatware -- but we've supposedly opened all of the boxes labeled "kitchen." I have found towels. 🥰

Well, that's sort of what happened to one of my son's nice LEGO sets ($100+ value) -- I honestly couldn't say regarding the furniture. But, these stories sort of make me feel better knowing I'm not the only one this has happened to! A bit worse, because the stories are so bad. One of my friends saw my photos this morning of my house... just packed with random bins/boxes all wrapped up, furniture on end/side, nothing assembled -- and said, "what? they didn't do a full unpack for you?" I replied they were just glad to get it off the truck after 20 hours -- we don't know where anything goes, because we don't know what most of this stuff is -- and can't find the hardware to put furniture that's not broken together... also, just found out they broke my other couch. We are officially couchless -- but I have 2 folding chairs, 1 camp chair and 4 kitchen chairs) OUCH! The company only sent 2 men to unload 9 crates yesterday, so some of the damage happened because they lacked the manpower necessary to unload things... I watched my sectional go end over end off the truck (and it broke). They really needed a minimum of three, four would have been better, because they could have unloaded the morning truck and sent one guy back to get additional crates while the other three (and I) figured out what stuff was and got it mostly to where it went. For OCONUS moves, the govt has contracts with various companies (we ultimately choose from their preferred contractor list), they do their end -- and then we get whomever on this end. The company we used was recommended by a couple of people who moved and used them (one last year, and one this past March). Sometimes it just depends upon who the actual crew is that went. When we were packed out to head to Italy, things were by no means perfect (the way they packed my books made me cringe -- but everything down to the plastic lids were wrapped very carefully. We weren't without damage (loading a fire safe into a dresser probably wasn't the brightest move, nor shoving 2x4s into the couch. We had one other dresser completely busted -- but it was an inexpensive piece we were able to replace. But, when it came to loading the boxes, like things were together, boxes were marked, and when you opened a crate it was pretty much filled with stuff from the same room. So, unloading went FAST. Unpacking went FAST (at least what we wanted to unpack), Within a day, we had the bedrooms, kitchen, school area at least functional. It took me about 6 months to get the pieces (book cases, additional table space, etc.) to really unpack -- but we were able to function well in advance. I can't even really function well yet, and we're on day 3. The men are out in the garage moving things around before the hurricane winds get here. They are trying to get the shelving units set up, so we can put stuff away. I told everyone they could work in their respective rooms later -- but for now, please help with that space, so we could begin to move stuff back to the shelving as we found it. I am currently prepping for my 6am class tomorrow -- assuming we have power & internet (lol) I've already notified my boss about the hurricane -- so they could inform our leads in China and no one freaks out if my power or internet is gone due to the storm. I have three full days to get to functional. Roughly 60 days to really get through every box to check for damage -- and then sometime by Thanksgiving, we should know about the claim. My house has to function. It doesn't have to be pretty. I don't need to be putting stuff on the walls, but I need to try to get shelves up (can't find the shelf clips...), desk space, hangers for clothes, and the laundry room working, you know 😄

I don't know -- I really don't. I'm hoping the clothes they took out of my dresser are in the boxes stacked in my room. But, it's really anyone's guess. After a couple of near misses, we've told all of the kids to be very careful unpacking their clothing, as we've found breakables wrapped in the comforters, inside boxes of clothes, At minimum, the nuts/bolts they took off of something to take it apart should all be in the same baggie and either taped inside the item or put in the one box of tools, remotes, etc. How in the world half of them get in one place and the other half go missing??? I just don't understand.