I am so upset and disappointed about this schedule conflict (venty)

[Ginevra]

This whole baseball season, DS13’s team has been a problem, unfortunately. There were only 8 team members from the start. For most games, we borrowed a player from the opposite team; never a winning strategy, to be sure. Then, one of our players broke his arm, so now we are down to 7 playable players. Because of this, it’s imperative that all players attend every game if it is at all possible. 

So. Now we’re in playoffs. Tonight is most likely the last game we will play. Only tonight is also graduation for DS18. Ideally, we would all attend the graduation, then go out to dinner. But that is not going to happen. I thought we were going to have a pretty good scenario because the field they were supposed to play on is only five minutes from the school, so I thought we could drop DS13 off, go to graduation (true, DS13 would miss graduation and we would miss his game, but...) and then pick him up at game end and all go to dinner (looking like an odd bunch, however). But due to the monsoons here, he cannot be at that field and has been moved to a turf field 15 minutes from the school, AND now his game is supposed to start at 7:30, while the graduation begins at 7. This also means the game will last until 9 or later, making the dinner moot or moot for some of us. 

I am so steamed. There is no good solution here. We will have to drop DS13 at the field early so we don’t miss our son walking across the stage. At some point DH will need to go get DS13, so if we are finished graduation and go to dinner, DH will have to leave dinner, which makes being out to dinner not fun to me. (I don’t care about the meal; I care about the celebration together.) Or we can skip going to dinner altogether and DH can go pick up DS and return back home. 

That was long and babbly. I wish there was a good solution but I’m not coming up with one. If DS13 does not go to the game, they will be forced to forfeit. There won’t be another night this week that we can all go to dinner together. 

[Acorn]

In my family, we would all attend graduation and a family dinner. However,  I don’t think any of our area leagues would schedule a conflicting game but we are in small community. Have you tried asking a teammate family to offer a sleepover to your son, so that your graduate can have both parents in attendance? I’m sorry you have the conflict.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Acorn said:

In my family, we would all attend graduation and a family dinner. However,  I don’t think any of our area leagues would schedule a conflicting game but we are in small community. Have you tried asking a teammate family to offer a sleepover to your son, so that your graduate can have both parents in attendance? I’m sorry you have the conflict.

No, we don’t know anyone well enough. We were originally going to see if someone could bring him from the game to...somewhere. But I don’t know where we’ll be at what time. DH did mention the issue to the other parents on Saturday. At minimum, the coach and other parents need to be aware that no parent will be there during the game, in case there was an injury or something. 

[mlktwins]

Maybe postpone the celebration dinner until to tomorrow night or later in the week (or weekend)?  It if were me, I would rather go when everyone can be there, is rested, and can relax and enjoy the meal.  

I get the baseball thing and less than ideal numbers of players.  I also get all the monsoon issues as we live in Northern Virginia!  I have twins and we don't tend to miss games because taking 2 out of a game can be problematic for the team.  But...our league is very conscious of local graduation ceremonies, etc., and won't schedule games on those nights.

I'm sorry this is all messed up!

[marbel]

When my kid was in baseball, his team hit playoffs and was short a player or two because of scheduled vacations. The team was able to pull players from other teams (that weren't in the playoffs) to fill out the roster.  Could you find out if that's a possibility?  

[teachermom2834]

My then 8yo dd had a dance recital the night my oldest graduated high school - an hour away (because we had moved before his senior year). It was really upsetting. We had to pay a babysitter to get dd ready for recital, drive her, and bring her home after. It was the first time ever we had a babysitter in 18 years of parenthood. And, oy, the comments from younger dance parents about missing the recital.

That is how we worked it out, though we did skip dinner or anything after graduation so we could get home for dd. I don’t regret doing it that way. High school graduation is a big deal.

I understand the peer pressure of not missing baseball. My boys played ball for years and I think parents would understand missing for a graduation. I know it is playoffs but if your team isn’t very good anyway I might consider just missing and letting everyone know with enough time to stay home. It might be unpleasant in the short term but will be a blip unlike missing high school graduation (or your dh missing running back and forth).

I’m sorry! It really stinks. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, marbel said:

When my kid was in baseball, his team hit playoffs and was short a player or two because of scheduled vacations. The team was able to pull players from other teams (that weren't in the playoffs) to fill out the roster.  Could you find out if that's a possibility?  

We have been doing that all season, but there is some different rule about this for the playoffs. Saturday was a playoff game and we had two visitors. I don’t know exactly how it works but I think two visitors is all we are allowed. So, it makes up for our regular dearth of players and the injured player, but all the other players are crucial. 

Is it bad that I wish a different player would have some reason he cannot play tonight? 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

My then 8yo dd had a dance recital the night my oldest graduated high school - an hour away (because we had moved before his senior year). It was really upsetting. We had to pay a babysitter to get dd ready for recital, drive her, and bring her home after. It was the first time ever we had a babysitter in 18 years of parenthood. And, oy, the comments from younger dance parents about missing the recital.

That is how we worked it out, though we did skip dinner or anything after graduation so we could get home for dd. I don’t regret doing it that way. High school graduation is a big deal.

I understand the peer pressure of not missing baseball. My boys played ball for years and I think parents would understand missing for a graduation. I know it is playoffs but if your team isn’t very good anyway I might consider just missing and letting everyone know with enough time to stay home. It might be unpleasant in the short term but will be a blip unlike missing high school graduation (or your dh missing running back and forth).

I’m sorry! It really stinks. 

My husband would never have DS skip, though. He is the athlete of the two of us and has that strong bond of commitment to the team. I don’t think DH will miss our son walking, but he will probably have to miss some portion of the ceremony or, at least, the reception part at the end. 

I can imagine how missing a recital would go over with the other parents. 

[Selkie]

Ugh, I'm sorry! I would be ticked off, too. 

[regentrude]

Can you drop of DS early at the game? He's 13, so not a 5 y/o who needs supervision.

Then pick him up after graduation. I can't imagine graduation goes much past the end of the game. Give him a cell so he can communicate.

Do the celebratory dinner another night.

[linders]

I'm really sorry. It sounds like a horrible conflict. Maybe we should secretly hope for so much rain that the game gets postponed?

[teachermom2834]

We never considered dd missing recital. It was the comments of the other parents that as a mom I would miss. They couldn’t envision a scenario that they would miss their dd recital. But I had another kid graduating high school. ??? I’m a bad mom for attending high school graduation. I had dd taken care of for recital. It wasn’t ideal but what else could I do.

I sure hope everyone else shows up to your game! I have had times when I went to extreme lengths to get my kids somewhere and then another kid didn’t show up anyways. Grrr.

Good luck to you and I hope you can enjoy your celebration even if it isn’t ideal. 

[marbel]

13 minutes ago, Quill said:

<snip>

Is it bad that I wish a different player would have some reason he cannot play tonight? 

If so, I'd be bad too, because that would be exactly what I was thinking!

You guys will get through it.  It won't be ideal for anyone, but it'll be OK. Not to minimize it; I get you!  But, overall none of these things are life-changing.  

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, regentrude said:

Can you drop of DS early at the game? He's 13, so not a 5 y/o who needs supervision.

Then pick him up after graduation. I can't imagine graduation goes much past the end of the game. Give him a cell so he can communicate.

Do the celebratory dinner another night.

Yeah, we will have to drop him early no matter what. It’s not terrible since he is 13. Just unfortunate. 

Dinner can be another night, I just don’t know when. There are other things messing with the rest of the week, like flood clean up at our properties; they are only allowing people in from 5-8pm. I’m sorry; that sounds so whiny. I think there will not be a dinner and I’m disappointed about it. 

[mlktwins]

16 minutes ago, linders said:

I'm really sorry. It sounds like a horrible conflict. Maybe we should secretly hope for so much rain that the game gets postponed?

 

?  We don't need anymore rain around here!!!  This week are are finally getting a break from all the rain.  Lots of flooding (like making national news flooding), trees falling on homes and cars because the ground is over saturated, etc.  I have prayed for rain to cancel a game on more than one occasion -- LOL -- but we have just had our 6th wettest May on record.

[Guest]

Just now, mlktwins said:

 

?  We don't need anymore rain around here!!!  This week are are finally getting a break from all the rain.  Lots of flooding (like making national news flooding), trees falling on homes and cars because the ground is over saturated, etc.  I have prayed for rain to cancel a game on more than one occasion -- LOL -- but we have just had our 6th wettest May on record.

I know, this is a bad issue for us right now. We need to repair at Ellicott City but we were not even allowed this past weekend. My garden is a disaster. I have plants sitting on my patio still not planted. My garden is half washed away. Yesterday I listened to my sump pump literally activate every minute or two. There is so much flooding in this state right now...

[Annie G]

In our town grad parties are held for weeks after graduation- often as late as early July. I want to encourage you to wait until your flood cleanup is done, baseball is over, and plan a special graduation dinner for your family. It will be great- no rushing around the day of graduation, and you can enjoy the family time. 

‘It sucks that a baseball game is dictating the schedule!

[wintermom]

21 minutes ago, Quill said:

Yeah, we will have to drop him early no matter what. It’s not terrible since he is 13. Just unfortunate. 

Dinner can be another night, I just don’t know when. There are other things messing with the rest of the week, like flood clean up at our properties; they are only allowing people in from 5-8pm. I’m sorry; that sounds so whiny. I think there will not be a dinner and I’m disappointed about it. 

These scheduling conflicts are annoying, but seem to be part of family life. Even if you come up with a "perfect" solution, that's the time someone suddenly becomes sick (or it pours rain, or the other team doesn't show, or the car breaks down) and it all goes out the window anyway. ?

Hope things roll out smoothly for you all! And congrats to the grad!

[Chris in VA]

How does your 13yo feel about missing your son's graduation dinner, if you held it tonight? Not ideal, but I might go with that. 

I hear ya, though. 

I might skip clean up at your EC property and do the dinner that night. It will be open the next week, right? 

 

Congrats on the graduation. My dd's is Friday. ❤️

[elegantlion]

What about a graduation lunch? Obviously it would be before the ceremony, but it might be an ideal way to chill prior to what sounds like a hectic evening. 

[SKL]

How about this:  DH drops you and DS18 off to get ready for the graduation, then drops DS13 off a bit early for the game (a half hour doesn't sound so bad).  DH returns to see the graduation.  Somebody takes a video of the parts with DS18 on the stage.  After the graduation, you all go watch the end of DS13's game and then go out for pie.  For dinner, eat before the graduation and bring a snack to eat while watching the end of the game.  Have a big dinner out on Saturday.

[unsinkable]

2 hours ago, Quill said:

This whole baseball season, DS13’s team has been a problem, unfortunately. There were only 8 team members from the start. For most games, we borrowed a player from the opposite team; never a winning strategy, to be sure. Then, one of our players broke his arm, so now we are down to 7 playable players. Because of this, it’s imperative that all players attend every game if it is at all possible. 

So. Now we’re in playoffs. Tonight is most likely the last game we will play. Only tonight is also graduation for DS18. Ideally, we would all attend the graduation, then go out to dinner. But that is not going to happen. I thought we were going to have a pretty good scenario because the field they were supposed to play on is only five minutes from the school, so I thought we could drop DS13 off, go to graduation (true, DS13 would miss graduation and we would miss his game, but...) and then pick him up at game end and all go to dinner (looking like an odd bunch, however). But due to the monsoons here, he cannot be at that field and has been moved to a turf field 15 minutes from the school, AND now his game is supposed to start at 7:30, while the graduation begins at 7. This also means the game will last until 9 or later, making the dinner moot or moot for some of us. 

I am so steamed. There is no good solution here. We will have to drop DS13 at the field early so we don’t miss our son walking across the stage. At some point DH will need to go get DS13, so if we are finished graduation and go to dinner, DH will have to leave dinner, which makes being out to dinner not fun to me. (I don’t care about the meal; I care about the celebration together.) Or we can skip going to dinner altogether and DH can go pick up DS and return back home. 

That was long and babbly. I wish there was a good solution but I’m not coming up with one. If DS13 does not go to the game, they will be forced to forfeit. There won’t be another night this week that we can all go to dinner together. 

Random thoughts...

Is there ANYONE not involved to drive your son around? Even if you have to pay/give $ for gas, etc?

Can your son take an Uber or taxi after the game to where you all will be? I know not every location has these available. 

Can you go out for late night specials/happy hour? So many places have specials after nine pm, like half price appetizers, etc.

[StephanieZ]

Just a thought . . . Do you have Uber or Lyft in your town?

If so, I'd put the app on my 13 yo/s phone and have him call a ride to wherever you are when his game is over. 

[LifeLovePassion]

Can you all go out for an early dinner? Even eating after a 7pm graduation ceremony would be late to me. 

[Junie]

Quill,

That is an awful situation.

I would ask ds13 if he wants to go to graduation.  If so, then you call the coach and let him know.

We had a similar situation a few years ago.  Dd13 had a concert and ds17 had a baseball game.  Ds17 didn't want to go to the concert and dd13 didn't care if he was there or not, so we arranged for a baseball teammate and his parents to take ds17 home after the game.  We picked him up after the concert.

I think that I would wait on the family dinner.  I would ask your ds18 what he would prefer.  He might want to go out with friends after graduation.

 

[sassenach]

We’re a baseball family and I would keep ds out of the game. Some things are just more important. 

ETA: if ds must go to the game, arrange for him to be with another family for the night so you guys don’t have to break up your evening. It’s too bad your league didn’t pay attention to the school schedules. Ours doesn’t schedule games over graduation ceremonies. 

[unsinkable]

I wanted to add...I "get" the desire to want to eat/get together as a family after the ceremony.

I love graduations but I'm not a fan of graduations ceremonies. I'd look forward to meeting up with my graduate and then all going somewhere together. We've had situations where family couldn't attend a ceremony but then met up afterward for food and/or drinks. It is much more fun and celebratory than sitting in an auditorium!

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, StephanieZ said:

Just a thought . . . Do you have Uber or Lyft in your town?

If so, I'd put the app on my 13 yo/s phone and have him call a ride to wherever you are when his game is over. 

This is what DS18 suggested. Uber does most likely serve the area where the game and graduation is, though not where we live. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, elegantlion said:

What about a graduation lunch? Obviously it would be before the ceremony, but it might be an ideal way to chill prior to what sounds like a hectic evening. 

Can’t do that cause DH has a ton of work today. 

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, sassenach said:

We’re a baseball family and I would keep ds out of the game. Some things are just more important. 

ETA: if ds must go to the game, arrange for him to be with another family for the night so you guys don’t have to break up your evening. It’s too bad your league didn’t pay attention to the school schedules. Ours doesn’t schedule games over graduation ceremonies. 

I think some of this is because DS attends a private school. They do, I’m sure, not overlap with the public schools locally, but probably don’t check for private schools too. 

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, heartlikealion said:

I think I would rather just have everyone meet up at home for dessert (and/or late meal). He'll be in his baseball clothes, anyway, and your oldest ds might be ready to take off his dressy clothes. OR, alternatively, do a family celebration another night/day (the day after?) and encourage your oldest to go out with his friends that night if that's an option.

Doing a fun dessert at home is actually a pretty fun idea. We could do sundaes with topings. They would all love that. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, unsinkable said:

Random thoughts...

Is there ANYONE not involved to drive your son around? Even if you have to pay/give $ for gas, etc?

Can your son take an Uber or taxi after the game to where you all will be? I know not every location has these available. 

Can you go out for late night specials/happy hour? So many places have specials after nine pm, like half price appetizers, etc.

In reality, there are people who would probably do the favor, like some of the aunts/uncles, assuming they don’t themselves have playoffs. This solution is more on me because I am a defective “asker.” I really hate begging a favor. I hardly ever do it unless someone is in the hospital or something. 

[mathnerd]

How about all of you picking your DS13 after the graduation and then going out to a later dinner together? Would the schedules work out for that scenario?

[Farrar]

I would also use Lyft/Uber for this. My 13 yos use it sometimes - well, one of them does, the other one has a weird love of taking the bus, but sometimes when it's late I insist that he Lyft. It's really easy to use. They're not technically supposed to pick up minors, but they totally do. We have yet to have anyone show up and refuse to take them.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, mathnerd said:

How about all of you picking your DS13 after the graduation and then going out to a later dinner together? Would the schedules work out for that scenario?

It would be so late. And I say that even though it is not unusual for us to eat late (at home, though). I don’t think the baseball game will be over until 9:30 or so, so we couldn’t even get seated until it is gaining on 10. The baseball player at minimum will need to eat something before the game. 

[The Governess]

How about ordering takeout? One of you could pick up ds, the others could get the food and go home and get things ready to eat right when ds gets home.  Maybe have some fun drinks and quickly put up a couple decorations to keep things festive. 

[marbel]

This would be a night we'd do an appetizer spread, possibly mainly with frozen stuff from Costco.  Little quiches, mozzarella sticks, etc., and a fabulous dessert. Obviously your options may be limited at this point.  I'm confident you will find a way to  make it fun.  Next year you can all laugh at the crazy graduation night.   But I think I am in the minority; I don't think high school graduation is a huge deal and would have been very happy to skip my own ceremony.  I'm not even sure my father was there.  He didn't do well at long boring ceremonies where he had to stay seated for a long time.  :-)    

[Clemsondana]

I could totally imagine this happening in my family.  I think that we'd probably drop younger at the ball field, go to graduation, , then we'd all troop back to the ball field to watch the end of the game while joking about celebratory pizza.  We'd probably end up at Waffle House and then go out for something nice at a later date, or not...one thing that I've learned, looking back on all of the similar situations from my childhood, is that for us, weird stories about 'the time that we had to' make the best memories.  

[bethben]

I would skip baseball entirely.  In my mind, a graduation trumps anything else but extreme illness.  You should make the day special for your son and that includes the whole family.  We are a family first and everything else second.  

[marbel]

2 minutes ago, bethben said:

I would skip baseball entirely.  In my mind, a graduation trumps anything else but extreme illness.  You should make the day special for your son and that includes the whole family.  We are a family first and everything else second.  

I'm not sure that's incompatible with trying to get the younger son to his game.  I'm not sure if Quill mentioned it or not, but it's possible the game is very important to him. Maybe the first time he's been in the playoffs, etc. I'm not really arguing; I just think that for some people, "family first" would include getting a kid to an important sporting event. I don't know but I would guess a lot of sports kids never make it to playoffs, but most kids (in the US) graduate from high school.   :-)

[Lang Syne Boardie]

35 minutes ago, bethben said:

I would skip baseball entirely.  In my mind, a graduation trumps anything else but extreme illness.  You should make the day special for your son and that includes the whole family.  We are a family first and everything else second.  

 

Isn't the other kid family, too? Missing playoffs and possibly making his team unable to play, might matter a lot to him. He needs family first support, too...

We would do (and have done) some form of splitting up, Quill. As you said initially, one parent might be able to do some back and forth, or if you'd EVER ask a favor of someone for a child's ride, this is a very, very reasonable time to do it. 

I would see if ds prefers to go out with friends,anyway (a pp suggested this) and plan the party for later in the wknd.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

32 minutes ago, marbel said:

I'm not sure that's incompatible with trying to get the younger son to his game.  I'm not sure if Quill mentioned it or not, but it's possible the game is very important to him. Maybe the first time he's been in the playoffs, etc. I'm not really arguing; I just think that for some people, "family first" would include getting a kid to an important sporting event. I don't know but I would guess a lot of sports kids never make it to playoffs, but most kids (in the US) graduate from high school.   :-)

 

I'm sorry, I missed that you'd posted this, before I said the same thing!

A seven year old missing one (regular season) game for a sibling's important event, okay. A 13yo wrecking playoffs for himself and for his entire school team, probably not okay.

 

[KungFuPanda]

In my family, we would divide and conquer. We’d do nice dinner-as-late-lunch, then be sure to get video highlights of both events. In the evening when we’re all back home we’d have fancy appetizers and dessert and watch the videos. 

Around here, graduations are online and you can access them for a few weeks. The bonus is that you can fast forward through the tedious parts. You may be able to get another baseball family to help you with game video. It’s going to be fine. It’s a big celebratory day all around and your family will have fun talking about it and filling each other in. 

[Wildcat]

7 hours ago, Quill said:

This whole baseball season, DS13’s team has been a problem, unfortunately. There were only 8 team members from the start. For most games, we borrowed a player from the opposite team; never a winning strategy, to be sure. Then, one of our players broke his arm, so now we are down to 7 playable players. Because of this, it’s imperative that all players attend every game if it is at all possible. 

So. Now we’re in playoffs. Tonight is most likely the last game we will play. Only tonight is also graduation for DS18. Ideally, we would all attend the graduation, then go out to dinner. But that is not going to happen. I thought we were going to have a pretty good scenario because the field they were supposed to play on is only five minutes from the school, so I thought we could drop DS13 off, go to graduation (true, DS13 would miss graduation and we would miss his game, but...) and then pick him up at game end and all go to dinner (looking like an odd bunch, however). But due to the monsoons here, he cannot be at that field and has been moved to a turf field 15 minutes from the school, AND now his game is supposed to start at 7:30, while the graduation begins at 7. This also means the game will last until 9 or later, making the dinner moot or moot for some of us. 

I am so steamed. There is no good solution here. We will have to drop DS13 at the field early so we don’t miss our son walking across the stage. At some point DH will need to go get DS13, so if we are finished graduation and go to dinner, DH will have to leave dinner, which makes being out to dinner not fun to me. (I don’t care about the meal; I care about the celebration together.) Or we can skip going to dinner altogether and DH can go pick up DS and return back home. 

That was long and babbly. I wish there was a good solution but I’m not coming up with one. If DS13 does not go to the game, they will be forced to forfeit. There won’t be another night this week that we can all go to dinner together. 

 

Is this a rec league or a school team?  Rec leagues are, fortunately or unfortunately, used to missing players and that's just part of the experience, sadly. They are used to missing players due to schedule conflicts when things are rescheduled. We were a heavy rec league sports family and made every effort to make practices, games, and tournaments, even when we had to split up and go in different directions. We have coached (for 13 years), been team parents (for 8 years), and have been regular old parents. I say all of that so you know where I"m coming from. We believe in commitment and would never skip a tournament game because a family BBQ was decided last minute or something (yes, we had that happen).

Quill, the game in question was moved to a field farther away AND it changed time. That is cause for a re-evaluation of your evening's events. No matter what your previous 'work around' was, this is now in direct conflict with a previously-scheduled event AND it causes issues with the participants in the other event (DH possibly missing some of the graduation & celebration). The *rescheduled event* now takes second place in the priority line. In our family, our child would miss the rescheduled game and we would attend graduation as a family. The only way we would split up was if this was some state championship game or a college recruiter were coming to see our child play. I also say this as a family where we often do nothing for things like Mother's Day, birthdays, etc. We are very relaxed as far as "family things", but for us, graduations are exciting, once-in-a-lifetime events that we attend as a family unit. For us, graduation would come first and we would attend as a family, guilt-free. Even if the game is forfeit, it's not because of your ds missing... it's a TEAM and the TEAM didn't have enough players, for whatever reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, Tibbie Dunbar said:

 

Isn't the other kid family, too? Missing playoffs and possibly making his team unable to play, might matter a lot to him. He needs family first support, too...

We would do (and have done) some form of splitting up, Quill. As you said initially, one parent might be able to do some back and forth, or if you'd EVER ask a favor of someone for a child's ride, this is a very, very reasonable time to do it. 

I would see if ds prefers to go out with friends,anyway (a pp suggested this) and plan the party for later in the wknd.

Yeah, it’s a big deal to DS13 and to DH. Causing the team to forfeit would be the “WORST. THING. EVER.” It is a rec league, and if it weren’t for the general understaffed situation, I would absolutely have him go to graduation and miss the game. But it’s because of the forfeit situation. Also, not that he is indispensable, but DS can pitch if a relief pitcher is needed and he is the best catcher on the team. Were it totally up to me, I might say, “Eh, it’s only a basebalł game. So what if they forfeit?” But that’s why I’m not the coach or team mom. I’m very blasé about sports, but DH and my sons are not. 

DS18 does not think it is such a big deal, for what it’s worth. He is happy as long as he gets a diploma and we do something to say, “Yay!” He isn’t going to be crushed that DS13 isn’t there, or that there will be some wonkiness as dad runs back and forth to the field at some point. In all probability, graduation will end before the game and we can all convene to the bb field and then go have pizza and sundaes at home. 

I did get sundae stuff today; I think that is a terrific idea. We will call in a pizza at any one of the ten thousand pizza places between the field and our home. 

I thank you all for helping me with perpective. It’s not the end of the world. I don’t like it, but yeah, it is true that sometimes these crazy situations make the funny stories later, like when I arrived on the train in Paris at midnight, only to be told by the hotelier that my reservations were cancelled by my travel rewards center...

[unsinkable]

1 hour ago, Quill said:

Yeah, it’s a big deal to DS13 and to DH. Causing the team to forfeit would be the “WORST. THING. EVER.” It is a rec league, and if it weren’t for the general understaffed situation, I would absolutely have him go to graduation and miss the game. But it’s because of the forfeit situation. Also, not that he is indispensable, but DS can pitch if a relief pitcher is needed and he is the best catcher on the team. Were it totally up to me, I might say, “Eh, it’s only a basebalł game. So what if they forfeit?” But that’s why I’m not the coach or team mom. I’m very blasé about sports, but DH and my sons are not. 

DS18 does not think it is such a big deal, for what it’s worth. He is happy as long as he gets a diploma and we do something to say, “Yay!” He isn’t going to be crushed that DS13 isn’t there, or that there will be some wonkiness as dad runs back and forth to the field at some point. In all probability, graduation will end before the game and we can all convene to the bb field and then go have pizza and sundaes at home. 

I did get sundae stuff today; I think that is a terrific idea. We will call in a pizza at any one of the ten thousand pizza places between the field and our home. 

I thank you all for helping me with perpective. It’s not the end of the world. I don’t like it, but yeah, it is true that sometimes these crazy situations make the funny stories later, like when I arrived on the train in Paris at midnight, only to be told by the hotelier that my reservations were cancelled by my travel rewards center...

This sounds wonderful.

My older son would probably tell his younger brother, "Go to your game and don't $uck." 

:lol:

[LucyStoner]

Graduation is at 7.  

Game is at 7:30.  

I assume the graduate has to be there early for rehearsal or reception or whatnot.  So using one car:

Both parents and the kids drive to graduation.

One parent leaves to drop baseball player off at 6:30-6:45 while the other parent saves the seats at graduation.  

That parent returns in time for graduation to start at 7.  

Both parents enjoy the graduation.  On the go dinner between graduation game pick-up.  

Everyone picks up the ball player.  

Dinner out the next day to celebrate.  

[KungFuPanda]

Make SURE you get a photo of both kids dressed up together. It’ll be funny later. 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Arctic Mama said:

Did I miss where you couldn’t just divide and conquer, with one adult responsible for one boy and another responsible for the other?  Then at least one parent is at graduation.  Do a nice dinner after ?

Neither parent wanted to miss graduation. We do usually divide and conquer for other schedule conflicts like two sports on different fields. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, KungFuPanda said:

Make SURE you get a photo of both kids dressed up together. It’ll be funny later. 

That would have been AWESOME if we had done that. The two boys did not cross paths the way it worked out because DS18 went in his truck early and DS13 was not ready for baseball yet.