On Sunday, Noah participated in the Junior Games, an organized athletic event benefiting a children’s charity in our city. It reminded me of the ‘field days’ my elementary school used to do, back in the day. All public schools with 4th – 8th graders, boys and girls, were invited to participate. Our school had 52 participants. Obviously this was optional, as it required an entrance fee and it was held on a Sunday. In total they had almost 1600 kids participating in track and field events. Noah ran in the 400m, 50m, and 400m relay, and also threw in the bag toss, and he did great!
They held the events in the stadium behind one of the high schools. The event was very well organized. The officials used the guns to start the races, they had official announcers, photo finish cameras, tracked records (this has been going on for 20-something years!), and played Olympic music. The officials even wore the red jackets and hats… love it! They had an opening ceremony where they marched the schools in carrying banners, and sang the National Anthem. Sunday was a ‘wet’ morning, so not everyone opted to show up early for the ceremony, but most did. One school had all of their kids in signature ‘socks’… one yellow and one blue knee sock, each. I think they were magic socks because they seemed to be winning a lot of the events. It was fun to see the school spirit. They had the kids dressed in color-coded shirts by grade. Noah wore yellow for 4th grade. This was our first experience so we didn’t really know what to expect. Hopefully this is something he can do again next year. It was so much fun for all the kids!
We weren’t able to sit in the stands since we had the littles with us. (Yet another example of the logistical issues with toddler triplets…) They are not quite old enough to ‘sit’ for that long, and even with both Matt and I (and Eli) it would have been too chaotic (and stressful) to try to control them in the middle of the crowd. We brought them in the choo choo wagon and parked them next to the fence. They thought it was funny to watch the kids run by. It turned out to be a pretty good vantage point… just a little hard on the back to stand all day. As the day went on, we parked them up under some trees outside of the venue and let them out to run around for awhile. We left the house around 8:00 am and didn’t get them back home until after 6:00, so it was a full (but fun) day.
The weekend just seems like a blur at this point. Friday night we took Noah & Eli up to the school for their ‘world’s fair’ (i.e. carnival). Saturday Eli had a birthday party to go to, and then Sunday was the Junior Games. Whew! I can’t imagine what life will be like in a few more years when all FIVE are participating in something!
I’m happy to wait awhile…
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