for the grandparents

Fair warning: this is a very braggy post but it has been a brag-worthy sort of 24 hours. Putting everything up here is the easiest way to share it, so I must beg forgiveness in advance.

It started last night at the school district talent show. Everyone who wants to perform and shows up to the rehearsal gets in, so it is a fairly long night, but worth it for the few minutes (or in our case, seconds) when your kid performs. At $5 a ticket, it is a brilliant fundraiser put on by the PTA to benefit the Fine Arts and Music program, taking advantage of the kids' desire to get up on stage and parental pride all in one profitable swoop.

This year Terzo decided to compose his own song for the performance. His piano teacher helped him translate the tune in his head onto paper correctly.

For the first time in public: "High Blues Walk."




We expect the ringtone to be released sometime next week.

Almost as short a performance time, but with considerably higher ticket expense, was Primo's event today.

To say he was thrilled to make the school's 4x400 team two weeks ago would be a severe understatement.  He is normally a distance runner, not a sprinter, so this was a departure. The event was HUGE, with hundreds of high schoolers participating. The kids funneled into a large corral at the end of the stadium, and then shuffled onto the track as the previous heat was finishing up. The gun went off every 5 minutes like clockwork to send another batch of kids around the track.

He is on the far turn in this picture, right in front of the Nike swoosh, in his flashy yellow racing flats. The team was on course to finish in the middle of their heat, which they would have been very happy with, until their fastest runner, the anchor, pulled his hamstring half-way through his lap and had to limp the rest of the way, though he did finish. Last place.

Primo was uncharacteristically philosophical. Actually, he had the same attitude throughout the wild ride of the last two weeks. He probably won't be competing at the collegiate level, so he told us that he was happy to have the chance to run in a stadium, just once.

Every so often, your kids give you a glimmer of hope that they are going to be OK, that they are developing management skills that will see them through life just fine. The last 24 hours have been a ray of light.