Yesterday, I told you about camping.
Thirty-two degrees.
Hot chocolate.
Coffee.
A fire that told stories.
And six people who somehow made it through the night.
But that was only Thursday night into Friday morning.
There was still an entire weekend waiting for us.
And when I sat down to write yesterday, I realized trying to cram all of it into one post would mean neither story got the space it deserved.
So The Half Facing the Fire got Monday.
Today?
You get the rest of the weekend.
Camping ended Friday morning.
Apparently the weekend did not.
By Friday afternoon, we had everything unloaded.
The tents were away.
The gear was back where it belonged.
Everyone was finally warm.
And most importantly, everyone had slept.
At least a little.
We were functional again.
Sort of.
Saturday morning brought baseball practice.
The rest of the family stayed home to continue recovering from our accidental arctic expedition, so David and I headed out together.
He was tired.
You could see it.
He wasn't running quite as hard as he normally would, and there was still a little bit of Thursday night hanging on him.
But he was there.
And he wanted to play.
They moved him around a little and put him in right field for part of practice.
I don't think it was punishment.
At this age, especially with only a few games remaining, moving players around and letting them experience different positions is exactly what they should be doing.
But what I really noticed was his hitting.
He was making contact.
A lot.
Probably sixty or seventy percent of the pitches coming his way.
Not perfect.
Not supposed to be.
But natural.
Comfortable.
Happy.
After weeks of rain stealing practices and games, watching him simply stand in a batter's box and swing a bat felt good.
He needed baseball.
I think we've established that.
Sunday morning?
Less successful.
We woke up late.
There was a special event happening at church, and by the time we were actually capable of arriving, we'd essentially be walking into the middle of it.
So we didn't.
And that led to another family conversation.
Getting six people out of a house is never going to be effortless.
I know that.
But we're also reaching a point where "we couldn't get moving" can't continuously be the reason we don't do something.
Everybody is getting older.
Everybody is capable of more.
And beginning Monday, some things needed to change.
Not angrily.
Not dramatically.
Just...
Enough.
We can do better.
So we're going to.
We still had plans for Sunday.
Pumpkins.
Every year since David was a baby, we've taken him to a pumpkin patch.
His birthday is in November, and fall has always seemed to belong to that kid.
He loves pumpkins.
Jack-o'-lanterns.
Halloween.
Orange.
The leaves.
All of it.
He even has an orange jack-o'-lantern shirt that has survived multiple years despite his best efforts to wear it into dust.
So we went.
And for a while, it was good.
We got pictures.
We walked around.
We did the annual thing.
Another year documented.
Another slightly bigger David standing among pumpkins.
That's the stuff I want.
Those little traditions that quietly accumulate until one day you realize you've been doing something for more than a decade.
Then things deteriorated.
Quickly.
The kids had energy.
A lot of energy.
Still.
And eventually running around became not listening.
Not listening became pushing limits.
And pushing limits finally crossed the line.
David was trying to keep Asher from running off.
Jacob ran over and deliberately kicked Asher in the calf.
And that was it.
Everybody in the vehicle.
We're going home.
There were tears.
There were protests.
There were explanations.
But we left.
Because I've reached a point in parenting where I don't particularly care how much we paid, how far we drove, what tradition we're maintaining, or how much fun everybody else appears to be having.
If we've crossed the line?
We're done.
My kids aren't toddlers anymore.
They're old enough to understand expectations.
They're old enough to understand consequences.
And they're old enough to know that being somewhere fun doesn't suspend either one.
So we went home.
And then came the next conversation.
Baseball.
Not everyone wanted to go to David's game.
And after the morning we'd had, part of me understood.
Everybody was exhausted.
Camping had taken more out of us than we'd realized.
The pumpkin patch hadn't exactly restored family harmony.
Staying home sounded pretty damn appealing.
But another part of me struggled with it.
Because I've always wanted my kids to show up for one another.
When your brother is playing baseball, you watch him play baseball.
When your sister has something important, you go.
When one of you has a moment that matters, the others should be somewhere nearby.
Not because Mom and Dad forced you into a vehicle.
Because that's what family does.
But maybe that can't always be forced.
That's something I'm wrestling with.
Eventually, I told them something I meant.
If you decide you don't want to show up for your siblings, understand that someday you may look into the crowd during your own thing and discover they're not there either.
I won't force them then if I'm not going to force you now.
That's a hard lesson.
Maybe too hard.
Maybe exactly hard enough.
I'm still deciding.
Parenting is helpful that way.
You frequently discover whether you made the right decision several years after you're required to make it.
In the end, Jacob came with me.
Dad.
Jacob.
David.
Baseball.
And I'm glad we went.
The boys started well.
Really well.
For the first couple of innings, things were working.
Then came the third.
Baseball can be cruel like that.
One bad inning.
A missed play.
Then another.
A ball gets through.
A runner scores.
Momentum shifts.
Suddenly a game that felt completely under control isn't.
What had been roughly a 4-2 lead became an 8-4 deficit.
It would have been incredibly easy for those boys to fold.
They're kids.
It's fall ball.
The season is almost over.
Take the loss.
Go home.
They didn't.
They held the other team in the fourth.
Then they started working.
A hit.
A runner.
Another opportunity.
Communication from the field.
Kids backing each other up.
Everybody engaged.
Four became five.
Five became six.
Six became seven.
Eight to seven.
Bottom of the fourth.
Time technically gone, but enough room to let the kids finish it.
Two runners on.
A chance.
Strike three.
Game.
They lost.
And it was fantastic.
Nobody walked off that field looking defeated.
Nobody needed some speech about how winning isn't everything.
Those kids knew exactly what they'd done.
They had been down.
They had made mistakes.
They had watched the game get away from them.
And then they showed up for each other.
They fought their way back within one run.
They gave themselves a chance.
That's baseball.
That's also a lot of other things.
Even their coach talked about the potential he'd just watched.
The communication.
The effort.
The way they stayed in it.
They didn't win.
But they showed up.
Funny.
I'd spent half the day talking about exactly that.
Maybe that's why the game stuck with me.
I want my kids to understand that showing up for each other matters.
But showing up isn't always sitting politely in the stands because Dad told you to.
Sometimes it's standing beside a teammate after he misses a play.
Sometimes it's talking when the inning starts falling apart.
Sometimes it's coming back onto a field when you're four runs down and playing like the game still belongs to you.
Sometimes it's going to your brother's baseball game even after everybody has had a terrible morning.
And sometimes?
It's knowing when everyone needs to go home.
We came home.
We ate dinner.
Everybody went to bed.
And finally, I think the camping trip stopped living in our bones.
Monday brought a reset.
The boys started their second nine weeks.
Zoey was already in the computer lab doing school before half past seven.
Asher was ready for another week.
I started my bachelor's capstone.
One class.
Two months.
A little more breathing room than I've had for most of the last year.
But this isn't quite the end.
Next term still has two classes waiting for me: my leadership course and my anthropology capstone.
The finish line is getting closer.
I'm just not there yet.
Work greeted my return from a day and a half away by apparently deciding that absence is merely a theoretical concept.
So that's fun.
And baseball isn't done with us yet.
Not even close.
I've been trying to follow the World Series too.
"Follow" being the operative word.
These games start so late that watching them with the kids, which is what I really wanted to do this year, is becoming nearly impossible.
Last night, I wasn't even planning to watch much.
Then my phone started lighting up.
Run.
Another run.
Another alert.
What in the hell is happening?
So eventually I turned on the Brewers game.
And apparently I had missed the moment when baseball decided to become completely ridiculous.
Ten to one.
Runs pouring across the plate.
One of those games where you look at the score and wonder if your phone is malfunctioning.
I love October baseball.
I just wish October baseball loved parents with children who have bedtimes.
Baseball has a funny way of giving you reasons to care about teams you never planned on caring about.
Last year, Jacob played on the Rays.
That was it.
He got the hat.
He wore the uniform.
And apparently Tampa Bay had acquired a new fan.
That's how fandom works when you're a kid.
We also made it out to see the Mudcats before they left, and the kids loved those games.
Minor league baseball has a magic all its own.
Close seats.
Kids everywhere.
Baseball without all the ceremony surrounding the big leagues.
So now everybody is starting to develop their own little connections to the game.
Dad has his teams.
The boys are finding theirs.
And this morning, none of that particularly mattered.
Before the boys left for school, I pulled up the highlights.
We watched the madness from the fifth inning together.
They loved it.
So did I.
No, it wasn't live.
We already knew what happened.
But for a few minutes this morning, three baseball fans sat together watching baseball before school.
I'll take it.
And tonight, we get our own version.
David plays again.
Originally, tonight was supposed to be a doubleheader.
Now it's one game.
Six o'clock.
His second-to-last game of the fall season.
He'll get home from school, change, grab his gear, and almost immediately head right back out the door.
And he's thrilled about it.
After losing so much baseball to rain this fall, I don't think he'd care if they scheduled first pitch during Thanksgiving dinner.
He gets to play.
That's enough.
Then there's practice Saturday.
The final game Sunday.
Halloween approaching.
Another lesson with the kids.
Another week already moving before I've completely processed the one we just finished.
And because apparently the universe decided we'd earned something after this weekend...
We found the phone.
Yes.
That phone.
The missing cell phone.
The one we've searched for.
The one I theorized had run off into the woods with Jacob's missing scorpion necklace to enjoy an extended camping trip.
Found.
And after all that searching?
Kati found it.
At the bottom of Asher's school bin.
In the house.
Basically hiding in plain sight.
Nobody thought to look there because the books in that bin don't really come out.
So there it sat.
Quietly.
Watching us search.
Judging us.
The best part?
She didn't even realize she'd solved the mystery.
She found a phone and assumed it was David's new phone.
Then David appeared with both.
New phone.
Missing phone.
Mystery solved.
Which also means the $20 bounty has officially been claimed.
By my wife.
Apparently I neglected to specify that the bounty was restricted to children.
Rookie mistake.
Kati gets twenty bucks.
I am a man of my word.
Which means we have officially closed one of the great Von Bank missing-property investigations of 2026.
One remains.
Jacob's glow-in-the-dark scorpion necklace is still at large.
So apparently the phone abandoned its traveling companion somewhere along the way.
The search continues.
And now we're moving again.
School.
Work.
My capstone.
Baseball tonight.
One final game Sunday.
Halloween coming.
Family.
Life.
Another week already in motion.
But that's okay.
We showed up.
Not perfectly.
Not always happily.
Sometimes after being told.
Sometimes after arguing about it.
Sometimes after screwing up an entire inning.
And occasionally after checking everywhere in the house except the place where the missing thing actually is.
But we showed up.
Maybe that's where we start.
I want my kids to grow into people who show up for each other without needing me to tell them to. I also know I can't manufacture that relationship by forcing everyone into the same vehicle every time one of them has something happening. Somewhere between those two things is the job I'm trying to do. Sunday wasn't our best family day. We were tired, tempers were short, and eventually I ended an outing because we'd crossed a line. Then I watched a group of boys fall four runs behind and refuse to quit on each other. They still lost. Somehow, watching them walk off that field felt like a reminder I needed. Showing up doesn't guarantee everything goes well. It means you're there when it doesn't.
Much love.
Stay safe.
Wash your damn hands.
And I will see you, next time.
