Such Stress

So we had a recent scare when dad went at 9 pm as usual to pick up Nic from marching band practice and he came back half an hour later hurrying me to find a doctor because she could be having a heart attack and was lying in the car. Not a good thing to be told in the middle of the night as you are about to retire to bed. So a frantic search on the website and we rushed to the nearest regional medical center. Turned out she had been lying on the field in school for 3 hours or so trying to breathe. Hard to believe no one called for that many hours. I wonder what an American mom or dad would have done in situations like this.

Because she was young and could not breathe, she was rushed in so at least we did not have to wait in the emergency room. Many hours later, she was discharged with a "we don't know the cause, but it could be some allergen that triggered a kind of asthma attack" or something like that (I am paraphrasing). It was a very long and tiring night, watching her go through at least 4 different tests and trying to stay awake.

So it was with some trepidation that I watched last night's marching band competition at Cupertino. This was the second competition in two weeks. Last Saturday was at Diablo Valley and then she had the attack on Tuesday. And I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the band went through their strides without a tiny figure suddenly swooning onto the grass. CalHigh was the last of the Class 2 bands to perform so it was already pretty late and they had had no dinner till the performance was over.

Last night's competition was a lot tougher just from the sheer number of bands competing. We left after all the bands had performed but before the awards were announced. I must say it was pretty impressive. The kids put in long hours to come to this stage and they were all good. Especially the Class 1 bands each of which had lots of members and color guards. And pretty much flawless displays. It was fascinating to watch how well the 3 drum majors of the Class 1 bands synchronised their moves. Kudos to all the marching bands.

Here are some pictures and a video of CalHigh marching band at Diablo.

Pardon the shakiness of the video. Hard to keep still when holding a small digital camera and trying to ward off a half man constantly trying to flash his palm across the lens and avoiding a fidgety blond boy just in front of oneself. And next week, the band is off to Gilroy. It'll be a long drive for us to watch the kids compete; we may car pool with Nic, Keng and some other parents from CalHigh. Would have been nice to mix it with shopping but no such luck. First Tee has priority over spending money...