Back when my middle son was 3 years old, my wise next-door-neighbor lady always referred to him as "the cat that walks alone." That pretty much summed up Ian. He did his own thing. Marched to his own drum. Wrote his own rules. He was stubborn as all get out but so tender and lovable all at the same time. As a non-conforming kind of personality I was always a bit concerned especially in regard to school and the social life accompanying it. Overall, he did fine but just average. Average was okay but I knew there was more inside his quiet little soul if he could just find his niche. Little did I know that the introduction of middle school would awaken the sleeping giant.

In the last 90 days I have seen this kid absolutely blossom. The first day of sixth grade was disastrous but day two brought a newfound confidence to take the bull by the horns and seek help from his teachers. He found favor with his science/math teacher when he learned of their shared love of mountain biking. A month later we had to give permission for the school psychologist to re-test him for some individual learning help that began in third grade. After the test, the gentleman called me and our conversation was music to my ears. He concluded that Ian had no need for extra help and was floored that he ever made it into that category. His exact words were: "you have a well put together kid. He's confident, athletic, handsome and is charming the socks off his teachers." At his conference last month, his social studies/language arts teacher's comment was: "I know you think we say this about every student but I really don't. This kid has character and is a true gentleman." Not words you normally hear from a public school teacher. My heart leapt and I wanted to hug the man. Nothing's more endearing than hearing someone praise and love your child.

The "coup de gras" , however, was when he got "recruited" for a cross country team by a substitute P.E. teacher. Ian called me from school that day and left this message: "We ran the mile in P.E. today and we had a sub and she thought I was really good and she wants me to be on their cross country team. We can talk about it later but I just wanted to tell you." When I spoke to the lady that afternoon she said: "I just saw a confidence and a maturity in him and knew he'd be an asset to the team." Ian started running with them 3 days a week and next thing we knew he was in Seattle qualifying for regionals. The following weekend he went to Portland for the meet and the top 20 finishers in each age group would be going to Alabama for nationals. You guessed it. Mr. Ian placed 8th and he'll be on a plane in one week heading southeast to run his little legs off.

If you know me very well then you also know that I hesitate to say much that could be construed as bragging. But this current chain of events called for a special post. Thanks for indulging me.