Read, Right and Run, well maybe walk

We celebrated my "vacation" weekend. It was Read, Right and Run - 26 books, 26 good deeds and 25 miles, with the last 1.2 miles at Forest Park on Saturday morning with many thousands of other kids. I think I heard 57 schools participated. We were toward the end of the starting group, and my wonderful, intelligent, but not very speedy kid walked the entire course. He strolled it more correctly. He was the absolute last kid to finish, moseying with one of the volunteers on her bike. I had to drag him jogging the last 1/10 mile or so. He walked it last year, with the principal jogging & dragging him the last little bit across the finish line. "Mom, do I have to do Read Right and Run next year?" "No, Son, you do not. I didn't make you do it this year. I just made you finish what you started."

Sunday was spent at Ruth Bruns 80th birthday party. She is Evonne Timmermann's mom. Evonne and Ruth were the only people to babysit Colby. When Evonne got a job at WashU, I had looked at the city's list of babysitters enough that I decided I was done. I would be the babysitter because it was easier than trying to find one in this town. That still hasn't changed. Evonne passed away unexpectedly about 18 months ago, but I still see her in my life and miss her. Every time my kids eat at her picnic table, or play a marble game from her...

Colby would like to buy a bobcat, or maybe a combine. Anyone got one for sale with his budget in mind? "Mom, when I get bigger, can I drive that and that and that? Then I'm gonna drive a combine. And a tractor. And a dump truck." Right after you learn your colors, numbers and letters. He has no interest in any of it. The speech teacher gets about 4 words out of him on task, and then he's off on his own tangent with no more cooperation from him. If 50 is the new 40, then 3 must also be the new 2.

Tom survived his first day shift in a while. It is good to have family meals again, and help with bedtime, and a million other things you lose on evenings. We still have no diagnosis, but he is coughing less and less as time goes by. He's still tired, but I can live with that.