Jog-a-thon

It's no secret that kids are amazing. I mean, anyone who has one (or more) is well aware of that. Today Squirt's school held a jog-a-thon fundraiser. You know the schpeal... the kids get sponsored for each lap they run {or jog or walk} in a certain amount of time... we sponsored her of course and so did her dad. I went to watch and document each leg of the journey.

I could not believe how excited all the kids were to do this. There was an energy in the air as they were motivated to see exactly how many laps they could do. Clearly the teachers did a great job of getting them pumped up for the occasion.

Squirt has been telling me about her jogging at school for a couple weeks now. It seems like she's starting to love it, though I can't tell if that's the jogging or the friends. Right at the start she and her new BFF linked hands and stayed that way almost the entire hour. 

I love shots that show emotion and seriously, she was literally bouncing along the whole time. 

Except when they would pause for a drink between each lap. I think Squirt would have kept going but her friend wanted a drink and she stayed with her friend.

For race bibs the kids wore stickers that the teachers would mark off every time they finished a lap. Here I was thrilled for her but starting to panic. She kept telling me she'd done 2-5 laps at school so figuring that there was no way on this green Earth that she'd hit even 10 I pledged $5 per lap...

On one of the rounds I had the girls pause for a pic. Here they are after 10 laps.  A quick break and then off again! By this point they were walking the first half of the lap, picking up to jogging when they tried to catch other friends or were roughly halfway around.

The final count... 15 laps!!! At 5 laps to 1 mile that means Squirt ran/jog/walked 3 whole miles today. I am uber-impressed!

I think she was thrilled to have me there. She kept wanting to show me who all her friends are. She's old enough to want privacy sometimes. Having her want to involve me in her school life took the edge off the "she's-growing-up-way-too-stinking-fast" feeling.

She was in kindergarten the year I graduated and took a teaching job. I remember walking her to the bus stop for the last time and attending the school's end-of-year dance festival. I cried knowing it was possibly the last time I would get to participate in any of her daytime school events since I'd be working from that point on. How little I knew about where my life would be in a few short years. I don't know how long I'll be able to do this but it sure is incredible {it is making me miss our Little Squirt something fierce}. How awesome this is.