Mack Truck

Mack Truck Comin' ThroughMack’s school held a one-mile race yesterday. I registered Mack for it for fun, although he’s never run a race before. The race started and I settled in to wait for him near the finish line, thinking he would be ten or 11 minutes. I was shocked to see him coming in as the clock neared the eight-minute mark.

Here’s where our inexperience hurt him. Before the race, I told Mack that the race would loop around and end “at the same place as it started.” In actuality, the finish line was about ten yards past the start line. Mack came in, got to the start line, and stopped dead…as another kid went right around him and into the chute. Mack figured it out, and finished, but he ended up coming in second place in his age division, just three seconds behind that kid whose mom wasn’t dumb enough to tell him the wrong ending line.

It kills me that I hurt his chances at coming in first, but he doesn’t care. A trophy is a trophy! And I know he (and I) will never make that mistake again.

He came in 19th in the race, of 163 people 18 and under. So, apparently my boy is a runner.

It would have been nice if he won, because the girl he luuuuurves won their age division for girls. That could have been the spark that brought them together. Now she will feel superior to him (although he did beat her by more than a minute.) Actually, I’m sure she already feels superior to him. After all, he is a boy and she is a girl.


In spring, a young man’s fancy . . .

Mack has a crush on an older woman (first grade) in his drama class. This is the first time he has felt this way, and he is giddy with infatuation.

He decided not to tell the little miss about his feelings, because she might not like him back and he might get embarrassed. But he already asked me if he can wear his new “cool jeans” next Thursday. She lines up next to him during the kick line they perform to “Ham it Up” and he told me “I get to put my arm around her back” and giggled. Little operator.


Oh, to be four again, when love was easy and problems were, too

Today was Purple Day at school. Mack wore a purple shirt and his purple Mack hat.

When I dropped him off, his teacher said, “Oh, Mack, you look great!”

At which point, a mother who was standing nearby, taking off her daughter’s coat, turned and said, “Oh, is this Mack? Ashley is in looooooove with Mack.”

Ashley, by the way…..long blond hair and incredibly cute. But famous as the girl who picked her nose, right in front row center, during the class’s singing presentation at church.