Stretching (STRECHING) this Morning (MOURNING)!

Woke up this morning - mourning the loss of Zeke's bike, still.......trying to move past it (maybe you can help me ) but this is the part of parenthood that cripples me the most....seeing a kid be really excited about something....then having it not work out. I can hear Scot's voice and see his smirk: "so life like" , he reminds me when I get "stuck" in cripple-land.

Reminds me of when Montserrat (11) was picked to represent his class in the school spelling bee a few years ago. He was Soooooooo excited and proud and couldn't stop thinking about winning the competition and going on to the city-wide level (and then to the MOON) with his spelling skills. The whole elementary school and tons of parents came to see it. I took the morning off from work to be there, to cheer him on!!!!! I was also soooo excited.

Montserrat had a number "1" on his shirt which simply meant that he was seated farthest to the right and would be the first child to stand and spell a word. The word was STRETCH and Montsi got very serious and carefully said these letters: "S-T-R-E-C-H".

I felt a tumbling-butterflies sensation in my gut...seeing the disbelief in his face as he realized the mistake. He was out, after 10 seconds.

He walked sheepishly to the back of the auditorium where I was sitting and sat like a puppy on the floor next to my chair. I reached for his hand and whispered some comforting words to him. His expression was part shock, part embarrassment and his sweet little boy hand stayed wrapped in mine, on my lap for the rest of the bee. All I could think about was how relieved I was to be there at that time for him.

By the time he got home from school, he was "over it"...even laughing a little about it.......which helped me to move on too....kind of.

Ruby