Life is but a Scream!: The Fun Run

I volunteered at the kids school for the fun run and marked off the kids as they passed the lap mark. The fun run is a fundraiser where 100% of the money raised goes to the kids-- spefically their field trips. This past year the Parent Teacher Club invested in an electronic reader board and spent all the money on that and other unexpected costs, so our kids have $0 in the budget for having fun. I was excited to help out- and boy was this fun- the first group was the 4th graders- they had plenty of markers so I cheered on the kids. I knew a few of them from our bus stop. The second group was the 5th graders. Again, I knew a couple of them. We volunteers finally figured out how to mark the big packs of kids and I had several kids who kept coming over to me each lap so we developed a bit of a relationship. These kids had a blast and really gave it their all. I hated running in school- so I was super impressed to see the kids doing it. I had a 5th grader I wanted to adopt. He ran 22 laps- around 5.5 miles! Wow! There was another boy whose goal was 18 laps. He didn't want to stop for water because it would waste time- but I told him he needed to, and like a good boy, he listened. (Gosh, what a MOM I have turned into!)

The after those two groups out came the kindergartners. Any thoughts we volunteers had to make things run smoothly went out the window. The kids ran in packs and were not capable of getting marked off other than a single file line. It was pretty funny actually.

Nathan reminded me of a rubber band-- he would go super fast then then slow down to almost a stop, and the get super excited and take off again and slow down. I also noticed the kinderkids would often just sit down when they felt they were too tired. Nathan would go over to them and ask them if they needed help- he would spend a minute on them, and then off he would go. A few times I saw him go backwards, but the teachers seemed to keep him on track. Kathryn really wanted to get down with him(I wore her in the eurgo-baby). I let her down and Nathan held her hand and walked with her. So very very cute. She was thrilled and he was proud. What better combo? Nathan's tally sheet said he ran 6 laps. That is a mile and a half! I am so impressed with him.