Turkey Trot 2018

Austin loves to run, just like his dad. 

He has a natural ability and, importantly, an inclination for running. He has done a few dashes, including this year’s 50 yard dash. We were worried that his perfect record of 1-0 would be in trouble, but we believe that he tied for first this year – a photo finish would be needed to determine the victor. In any case, Austin ONLY likes to win, so we’ve been talking with constantly about not winning and just doing your best. This discussion has been incessant with mild to medium success. At least now, he tells us he understands. However, when it comes down to it in the heat of the moment, he inevitably crumbles under the weight of his self-imposed perfection and has a meltdown.

Interestingly, the tie at the dash was acceptable. We'll take it...

So, then it was time for the turkey trot.

I was, as per usual, nervous. This time it was, because the turkey “trot” was actually a 1-mile race. That’s a long race for a 4-year old. The weekend before we practiced and Austin made it twice around Lincoln Park without much effort. I mean, he walked a bit, but my concern was for his temperament and stamina, not his time trial splits.

So I thought, ok, he can do it.

The Turkey Trot was on Thanksgiving Day, thus I was not planning to attend, because I was cooking my favorite meal for 12 people. It was up to Hayden to keep Austin alive, uh, I mean, go and enjoy the race with Austin.

On the morning of the race, it was bone-chillingly cold. 28 degrees and very windy. This was a wrinkle I had not anticipated. We decided the night before that it would simply be too cold and too irresponsible for Austin to race. But of course, the fun of it all nagged at us. When I remembered he inherited long underwear from his friend Kobe, we decided to go for it. Layers upon layers were added to this kid. We found heavy gloves we forgot we had for him and a face mask that he swore he wouldn’t wear until he stepped outside. And, off they went and back to the kitchen I went to prepare the bird and fret about frost bite.

An hour later, I get a text of a red-faced but contented little boy clutching a medal, replete with a picture of a turkey wearing sneakers. They did it! And there’s even a video I need to figure out how to upload.

My boys, the runners both!

PS The Thanksgiving meal was great too. The menu was:

Turkey and stuffing

Homemade cranberry sauce

Roasted Winter vegetables with Z’aatar spices

Italian Brussels Sprouts with lemon zest and parmesan cheese

Pumpkin pie

Peanut butter and Hershey kiss cookies

Others brought:

Mom’s famous mac and cheese

Sweet potato and apple casserole

Jodi’s famous green bean and fried onion casserole

Banana bread

Mashed potatoes

 

 

T-ball for the Win!

I think I’ve found my calling: T-ball coach. We signed Austin up, hoping he was now old enough to enjoy it (unlike soccer at age 2…)

About a week before it started, an email asking for volunteers went out and I said I’d be happy to help. Translation: I was assigned head coach of the Detroit Tigers.

Austin and I had a blast! He loved hitting line drives and learned that he could “pull the ball.” He was one of the best of the bunch, alongside little Benji, who’s dad brought him his own bat for practice. I made up drills and learned that some wouldn’t work with 4-year olds. For example, lining everyone up to sprint to the cone at the far end led to various crashes, stumbles, and tears, and so it was better to split them up a bit and do a controlled release of each runner. 

I made the real-time decision that throwing partners should be parents and not other kids. Several near misses occur when projectiles, I mean balls, are launched by 4-year olds. Similarly, batting practice involved all parents on deck. I helped with each kid’s swing and form, we needed 2-3 parents to hold the other kids in a line far enough back so that the child swinging didn’t hit someone, and James #2’s mom had to hover close enough to him to catch his bat when he flung it with reckless abandon, but not too closely as to get her head knocked off. We needed a parent on each base to direct traffic and we needed to move homeplate away from the T as to not cause yet another opportunity for injury. Phew.

Our “game” consisted of one inning where everyone got to hit. Austin figured out that if he went up to bat last during games, he could hit a home run and run all of the bases. This was because each kid was allowed to run to first base and advance bases one at a time until the last kid hit and brought everyone home. I let him do it every time, promising myself that if another kid caught on to this boon I would make the switch, but no one did. At the end of our “game” I gathered everyone around and brought hands in for a great big tiger roar, and then on to snack time, which was a highlight for us all.

Teamwork for Austin and for the other gaggle of 4-year old boys and one girl was still elusive, but for the most part our second foray into organized sports went well.

 

Tony’s Adventure Camp aka Endless Summer

This summer, Austin went out to camp a four year old boy and came back a man. 

Sigh. 

That’s how it felt. The independence lessons were more than this mom could take as we had no choice but to send him in to the densely packed, loosely structured den of “Tony’s Adventure Camp” for 6 weeks. 

On his very first day, once I found him amongst the throngs, he was soaking wet, even his shoes. 

“Austin, why are you wet?” 

“They have sprinklers, mommy!” 

“But your shoes are wet.” 

“Hey mommy, guess what? We took the X2 today!”

“But your shoes...we need to change them. You shouldn’t have wet shoes.”

“Ok, mommy. Hey mommy, watch how fast I can run down the hallway!”

It was a good experience in the end. He had an excellent caregiver, Mrs. Dorsey, whom he knew from Miner. He got to see some really exciting things, like Discovery theater on the Mall, the Zoo and some park with a zip line in it. He went to every small-owned business in Capitol Hill, like the Candy Jar and Pow Pow vegan restaurant. He learned the ENTIRE Washington DC metrobus line. “Oh mommy, there’s the 92. I’ve been on that!” 

He went the whole day walking and walking and walking through the city, and then would come home and collapse in bed by 7:30. He never complained though. 

I, on the other hand, was a wreck. I stressed about his stamina and gave him pep talks every morning about the importance of hydration and shade. I stressed about unattended potty breaks. “Don’t wait until the last minute. Remember you have extra clothes. Did you wipe?” I stressed about him getting lost in the city, about eating his lunch “not just the cookies” etc etc and he did fine. Just fine.

To get to him took an hour on two trains and a bus or two buses and a train. I’d sprint the last leg up K street NE, melting from the heat. My face was flushed, my throat parched and blisters were stinging my feet from 60 minutes of walk-running the length of Washington to arrive just as soon as I could, lest he’d be left to fend for himself even 2 minutes more. When I arrived in the strange place, frantically scanning room after room, little body upon little body, for my curly blonde kid, he’d always be there, in the last room, with a “MOMMY” and a running jump into my arms.

Austin was resilient and amazing this summer and handled the grueling “adventure” with no complaints.

We are back at Miner with Mrs. Mukendi and it feels like an utter relief. But that’s more about me than Austin. He loved this summer. After all, it was an adventure!

Austin, 4.25

“That’s a distraction!”

“Where did you learn that word?” Hayden asked.

“Mrs Keeno told me.” (his pre-K 3 teacher’s helper)

“Good use of vocabulary, Austin.”

*looks proud*

At 4 years and 3 months, Austin is a full-on little boy. He is loving school. Each day he reveals the artwork from his day: lots of rainbow drawings (proudly using both sides of the paper), some writing (he can write his name and the names of most of his classmates - Robert, Hope, Eli, Avah, Nora, Isla etc) and his latest color by number coded drawings.

He LOVES baseball and is currently favoring the Yankees over the Nats. He doesn’t even pretend that it is for any other reason than because they win a lot. Austin is super competitive. We recently entered him into a “fun run” and he was actually nervous about winning. Even with lots of “winning isn’t everything” pep talks from us. As I am a professional worrier, it’s hard not to see this as a foreshadow for his competitive sports game experience in the years to come.

Hayden seems to be constantly surprised that Austin is not shy. He is not. Anyone close to his age is an automatic invitation to engage. Even with adults he feels he can carry a conversation and funnily enough he can. I think people like him, because he is one of the few four year olds they come across who can hold a coherent back and forth, linear conversation on the weather, botany, baseball, etc...

For example, I wrote the above paragraph before receiving the following email from my dog walker, Angelique today:

"I just wanted to tell you that Austin is hilarious. I just walked Jeeter, and when I entered he says "I was wondering when you were going to get here."

There was another day he told me he had to put up with a lot of nonsense. 

When he's home, he puts a smile on the day. :) "

This morning we had his final parent teacher conference of the year and it went as expected: in conclusion, Austin is doing really well! He loves learning and his teacher, Mrs. Mukendi, expressed true shock at how advanced he is for his age. He wants to learn, he wants to write and he is trying to read. We could not have had a better year at Miner Elementary School.

As I write this glowing report, I think of how many times I yelled at him this week. He is not perfect and we are not perfect parents. He runs out of fuel quickly and when he does, it’s batten down the hatches! He gets super hangry. And I’m often tired after a long day and don’t exactly shine my best either at 9:15pm when he is showing no signs of sleep.

Alas, ‘tis but a wrinkle in an otherwise perfect little boy. He is truly amazing, beautiful and we are so blessed.

This is 4!

“Actually, mommy, I told you several times to turn the music down while you were driving.”

Thus, begins 4 years with Austin. He is, according to his pediatrician, “perfect.” He is smart and interested in everything, but especially Star Wars and Spring daffodil and tulip bulbs popping up from the ground. He is thriving at school. It is an excellent program and while we don’t always get a full report from him about the day goes, it comes out in other ways. For example, last Sunday Austin and I took the streetcar to Union Station. As we were boarding, I pointed to a mural and asked Austin, “who is that?” He replied, “that’s Martin Luther King, Jr.” and proceeded to launch into an extensive song about the hero. They have been learning about Black History Month.

This has been a good way to finally reveal to Austin that there are people of different skin colors. I have been struggling with this. I have not wanted to expose him to the hate associated with discrimination, bias and racism, but I also know that I have the privilege to do that, because he is not a young black boy. The celebration of black Americans at his school is a constructive approach. As testament to the positive associations with race and destiny, Austin was one of two kids in his class featured in the MLK “I have a dream” display. When asked what he would be when he grew up, there is a photo of Austin next to Dr. King with the quote, “I want to be a racecar driver.” Hayden was disappointed. He was (is!) still hoping Austin will want to be a professional tennis player. With an ability to switch from forehand to backhand in mid-rally from the age of 3, I think that could still be a back-up career should racing not work out.

He’s also learned a lot about candy and cupcakes this year, too! We celebrated his 4^th year several times with cake for friends at home and cupcakes with his classmates. The piñata was a highlight of his birthday party as he and all the other kids gorged themselves with candy. They stuck it everywhere they could to preserve their stashes until cups were mercifully distributed to hold their booties. Interestingly, after the initial rush, most candy was left behind and tossed away, without complaint from the parents.

Austin recently demonstrated that he can count to 100 with a few prompts along the way. I am amazed at the acceleration of growth and learning that comes at this age. He loves to tell a knock knock joke and received a book of them from his Grandma and Grandpa when visiting Asheville last week. His favorite at the moment is:

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Interrupting cow.

Inter-

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

He breaks his heart laughing every single time.

On our way to meet Uncle Jeff today, we talked about strangers and how we shouldn’t talk to them – a recurring discussion. He understands the concept well. He then discussed the fact that he can talk to mommy and daddy and grandma and grandpa, grandmom and pop pop and uncle Jeff. He was happy to talk about his family and has a good sense of their importance. He was disappointed his cousin Alexa wasn’t going to be with Uncle Jeff.  

As we walked the dog tonight in the rain, he said to me, “hey mommy, at the end of summer, my daddy is going to buy new running shoes.”

Daddy has been away this week and we are clearly all looking forward to his return!