Kid's Dirty Dash for St. Jude

Jack had a cool opportunity this past weekend to participate in his first race and help raise money for St. Jude. As indicated by the name of the race, "Dirty Dash" we prepped Jack by telling him he would get muddy and that was OK. Sometimes he has an aversion to getting really icky. We also tried to explain to him the concept of fundraising and donating money to a charity. Pretty sure he's still a little fuzzy on that concept. He only asked a few people to support him and it went something like, "I'm running a race. Will you give me money?" It was effective :-). The morning of the race we talked some more about it and he declared that he would get to keep the money. Oi Vey. He was very excited about his race and we got there plenty early to have a look around. We signed in at registration and when he was asked if he fund-raised he said yes and handed over his packet. The volunteer was so encouraging to him about his generosity, it was really sweet, I teared up as I watched my child learn a little about giving to others. I'm such a sap. Before the race he tried out the obstacles which helped him get a little more comfortable with it all, but I'm pretty sure the mud pit made him nervous. He was very excited about getting muddy until he saw the actual pit, it was a bit intimidating. He lined up for his race and even got to run with a friend from school. When they first started there was a crowd of kids running over the first dirt mound and I could not find Jack at all. Finally, he made it to the top and was off. I raced around with him yelling and cheering and snapping pictures like a crazy lady and even managed to run into a few people in my pursuit of encouraging my son and capturing some memories. He did so great. When he got to the mud pit he just stopped though, along with many other kids. A volunteer was nearby and offered his hand. Jack gratefully took it and the two of them sloshed their way to the finish line. At the end he got hosed off by what he thought was a fireman...you can see in the picture it's just a boy. But this might have been the highlight for him. The boy had to eventually turn the hose off because Jack would not leave the water even when told he was clean enough. It was a very quick event, but it was a lot of fun. We will surely look forward to future mud races.