Micah's Last One

Brad says I have the worst camera battery hygiene of anyone he knows.

I found this comment to be quite the hilarious juxtaposition of words. Battery hygiene? Who thinks of that?

Brad does, obviously. And I'm lucky to have his humor deprecating me through life.

The motivation for his comment?

The elementary school track and field day--Micah's last one. The kids look forward to this day all year. In fact, on the first day of school, kids size up who is in each classroom to gauge if their runners have a chance of winning the relay in March.

It's serious business.

First event of the day is the cross-country race. And that's when I discovered my battery was almost dead, which motivated Brad's sarcastic and strange comment about battery life. Because of my poor camera battery hygiene, I had to use my DSLR like a film camera, only taking a few shots and hoping they would be good.

Meh. They were ok. But they did the job of preserving the moment.

 Micah came in ninth place, with a race to the finish between him and one of his best buddies.

 His next race was the 50-meter dash. He knew he wouldn't be the best, but he was hoping to get into the final heat. He didn't.

 When I saw his dash time compared to the other racers, I knew his class was in trouble, because Micah was on the relay team. By default. A family in our neighborhood had their house burn down just two nights before this, and the son that is Micah's age still hadn't returned to school. So the weight of the relay rested on Micah.

He ran first leg, and he did pretty well, but the baton handoff was really rough. The next runner dropped it, and their class couldn't ever recover from it.

More memories made on the Hale playground. I love our neighborhood school and I love how our PE teacher is able to motivate all of the kids to participate, no matter their ability level.

It's hard to believe that my fifth child will finish elementary school in nine weeks. Where is the time going? I'm here every day . . .