The high school kids had their first meet yesterday. Their team is even smaller this year, with two girls including my daughter, and then four total boys. Two of them weren’t there last night and are debating on whether or not they’re going to keep running. Cross country is not one of the school’s primary sports. Most of the sports boys in the fall play soccer. The girls play volleyball.

One of the soccer moms texted me yesterday saying it’s going to be a long season. I said, “Oh? Anything in particular?” Basically watching high school boys running around, running into each other and being knocked to the ground, and then thankfully getting back up again is difficult for moms to watch year after year. There is something about the sports with the increased testosterone.

And even when you’re a couple of states away it doesn’t matter. I was more nervous and physically disturbed with my son’s first college 5K yesterday than I was with the junior high meet or with this one. I have tried to figure out why this is. I think that it has something to do with the fact that he was the first one and the only one I had that much 1-on-1 time with and for in the earlier years.

He didn’t do very well. And even I was surprised and a little concerned with the time. Things like that make me wonder about what else could be going on. I was happy about the prospect of him having an already built in team and community but not so much about meets and more training. The worries and cares of this truly are endless without the blessing of the Lord who is willing to take them.

He wanted to hear about this meet too, specifically the mile splits of his sister. We ended up “hanging out” during the races via text. At one point I asked if I was texting too much and he said no, so I gave him the updates from the start times to the first mile splits of the lead runners to the team member splits at the 2-mile where I sat down and waited for first the boys and then for girls to run by.

I have really enjoyed having the phones to keep in touch. I feel like I have talked to him more in one week than I did in all of his four years of high school. That has to be an exaggeration but something about it feels true. I don’t regret not getting them phones, but I am seeing what you miss when you do not have that instant access. Even with the phones I miss him, and felt it there.

We stopped by Dairy Queen on the way home from the meet. Since we really haven’t gone on any vacations much these past few years, I figure the money spent on travel food is sort of making up for that somehow. Each meet is sort of like a mini-vacation. Dad and the kids got ice cream blizzards and I had a chili dog and fries from the 2 for $5 menu. I say more of these types of meals than the others.

After church today we picked up lunch and went to my in-laws house. Josh wanted to measure and scope out potential areas to fit a ramp. We brought a wheelchair from camp and played around with what it might be like to have to back it up into the house. We tested out the hallways and doorways and decided the front door would probably be best. They’re hoping to get something built within the week.

During church I met with a couple of congregants. Every so often there are a few of us who end up out in the narthex before church is over. We talk and get to hear a bit about each other’s lives. Busy and hard are the common themes, with sometimes more of one than the other. It makes us all the more appreciative of the one whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. In him we find true rest for our souls.

I sometimes feel like talking so much about one kid makes it sound like I am completely out of touch with my other kids. There is something about having multiple kids that makes it easier to view them with what I call a “herd mentality”. They’re “your kids” or “the boys” or whatever nickname or category they get lumped into over the course of the years. At various times I’ve called them “kidlets” and “kiddos” and “boyos”.

But you really do have something different with each of them. For years I’ve told the boys goodnight with a special 3-line cadence. “Goodnight. Love you. Jesus loves you” and they something similar back “Goodnight. Love you too. Jesus loves you too.” But I rarely said that with my oldest. If they were in the room together when I’d go down before bed I sometimes said it, because I didn’t want him to feel like I was withholding that love from him. But it was different. I often wondered if it was puberty or him.

Because the boys I would give kisses to and to this day they kiss me back. But with Ethan I would kiss his head, and only rarely his cheek. With my daughter I kiss her head, but it isn’t awkward to say it. By the end before he left it was a simple hug and “goodnight”, sometimes initiated by me and sometimes by him. When they come into my room and if I’m already half asleep, in no time I am up on my side reaching out with my arm.