On Thursday, Dekker joined the local high school for their track meet. Its a right of passage for the grade sixes to participate in the high school meet, kind of just to get acclimated. Dekker got to choose 4-6 events to do, some of which aren’t offered at his current elementary school. However, track is not something Dekker enjoys so much, so he played it safe and chose familiar events. At first, I felt a little disappointed, and I wished he had branched out a little. But, as my children continue to do, Dekker surprised me at track.
He scheduled all of his events in the afternoon, which was smart. He had high jump first, which he enjoys, but even he would say he doesn’t excel at it. He was all lined up at high jump, but before the event began, he was called to do his 200m run first. Small towns can mix things up a bit more that way, haha! So he took off and ran the 200m against a few older boys.
And he got second! He really pushed it, and he passed a couple of people in the process! I was VERY impressed. When that was over, he made his way back over to high jump, and did his jumps. It was over quickly, and his immediate move was to run over and poach Wavy from me. He took her to the concession stand (or, as Wavy called it, the food castle) and bought her a candy bag. And then he wrangled her up a second time to get her a freezie. There was a bit of a break in there, and Dekker and his friend hung out with us, watched other races and jumps, and played with Wavy. It was cute and very relaxed.
Then the time came for the next event – running long jump. After one jump, Dekker was oddly called away for his other running event! So much overlap today! So off he went, and eventually the gun sounded, and Dekker and two of his buddies were running the 400m!
This was a pretty cool race to run, because they were in a decently tight clump for most of the run. Two laps of the track. Dekker and a buddy were pretty much head to head, just a few steps in front of another friend. Dekker blew me away by kicking it into super high gear towards the end. He went SO fast and worked SO hard to overcome his friend! He did not beat him, and he pulled another second place spot, but I whooped and hollered at him like any embarrassing mom would. Because he was SO DETERMINED and driven. I have not seen him put so much energy into something like RUNNING. Dekker does not at all care for running, and he still gave it absolutely everything he had. I was absolutely floored. SO impressed.
After the race was done, the poor kid had to come back to long jump!! Gah!!
Lucky for him, his next jump was significantly better than his first, and they happily called it a day for him. His exhaustion was written all over his face, but he was being just such a good sport.
When it was all over, he asked to come home. I reminded him that he had to do Frozen after school, and he slumped his shoulders. He groaned a little bit, SO tired, and said he might still like to come home, just for that 20-30 minutes to regroup in the air conditioning. I said of course I would take him home. But after he grabbed his backpack and caught up to us, he said he had decided to stay and just hang out with his friends.
The boy is growing up 💜 I am SO delighted to have my Dekker Thomas. What a gift he is.