Teacher Appreciation Week

A couple of weeks ago, it was Teacher Appreciation Week.  Alex is in a 3rd grade class and has two teachers who job share.  One teacher works Mondays and Tuesdays; the other teacher works Wednesdays and Thursdays.  They alternate Fridays.

The PTA organized a schedule of items to bring your teacher each day of that week.  Things like, Monday bring a fruit, Tuesday bring a plant, Wednesday bring a cookie/treat, etc.  On Friday they were to bring a card. 

Being true to himself, Alex waited until 7pm on Thursday night to throw something together.  He says he works better under pressure.  Oh, I'm so not looking forward to the teen years!

I won't write much more here about the card, because I think it speaks for itself.  This kid cracks me up!

Niketown 5K May 10, 2008

Alex has been dying to run a 5K, and the Niketown 5K for kids was the perfect opportunity to get his long legs running!  All of the registration fees were donated to local schools.  It was emceed by a local celebrity -- John Curley from Evening Magazine, and was kicked off by Marcus Trufant of the Seattle Seahawks.

The run was 

a certified 5K starting and ending at 5th and Pine downtown Seattle.  The course took us down Pine and on to the I5 e

xpress lanes and back.

He's quite the little runner, and makes it difficult for Mom to keep up.  I was, of course, worried that he would take a wrong turn and get lost somewhere along the way, so I would not let him run too far ahead.  

Our deal was that he would have to check every 2 minutes to see if he could still see me.  There were a few logistical issues which led to slower times than we had hoped for.  He would run ahead, then stop to wait for me.  In the process he'd lose sight of me, and I'd run ahead of him.  This happened a couple of times.  

At about mile 2, I noticed I could no longer see him.  My Mom instincts caused me a bit of panic, so I stopped at the turnaround, and waited for 2 minutes.  Still  no sign of him.  I decided to run through and hope he was at the finish line.

As it turned out, I needn't have worried.  The course was very well laid out, and there was really not an opportunity for him to take a wrong turn.  He was there waiting for me at the finish line.  Next year -- he's on his own!