Jay

 It's the first day of Jay's birth month, so how about a feature on my firstborn? Jay is in the middle of middle school right now and he has Activities that are separate and distinct from his younger sisters. He attends young men's activity every Wednesday night at church and helps pass the sacrament on Sundays. He is the secretary in the deacons quorum. He plays tuba in the school band and string bass in the school orchestra. He is on the middle school track team and convinced several of his friends to join the team with him to make it more fun. He grew his beautiful hair out till it was the longest it's ever been, claiming that he wanted to run one track race with it long before he whacked it all off. 

At home, if it's not screen time (Minecraft), Jay can usually be found wearing his beloved noise-cancelling headphones and listening to a library audiobook. As a kid who scored 75% introverted on a personality test, he treasures his quiet alone time to recharge. Then he goes back into the fray of life with his friends and activities with renewed energy. 

Jay's first middle school track meet was on the chilly breezy afternoon of Tuesday, April 19th at Prosser High School, which is half an hour from home. Jeff drove there straight from coaching high school track practice, and I picked the girls up from school and drove straight to the meet with them so we could all cheer Jay on. At the meet, Jay ran the 1600 and threw the shot put. In the 1600, Jay tied his previous personal record of 6:55. He ran the race with his long hair flowing, just like he wanted to. He about froze standing in line awaiting his turn at the shot put, and decided that he would stick to running events after that. Prosser has my favorite Thai restaurant (it's my fave by default since it's the closest Thai food to our house), and when I offered to take Jay there to celebrate his first track meet, he agreed. Jay has become much more willing to try new foods, and he likes Thai food. 

Amber is not-so-interested in interesting foods, so Jeff kindly picked up a hamburger for her on the way to the Thai place. Amber ate her burger while the rest of us enjoyed divine Thai noodle dishes. Pad Woo Sen forever! It has been a long time since we sat down in a restaurant together, and it felt so decadent having someone else prepare our food, bring it to us, and clean up after us. It was a sweet luxury after an hour and a half freezing out in the elements at the track meet! 

The following Sunday afternoon, Jay asked me for a haircut. Rose reminded him of the price: he had to let me braid his beautiful hair before I cut it. So Jay dutifully let me give him four loose cornrows. It was so fun. Jay has such good hair, I spent a while trying to convince him to keep it long for a little while longer. We all wanted him to wear the braids to school, but he refused, stating "I prefer to keep a low profile at school. That's why I wear mostly gray, blue, and black." I can't fault him for that--middle school requires all kinds of survival tactics.

Jay's second track meet was on Wednesday, April 27th, at West Valley High School in Yakima, which is 50 minutes from home. I picked the girls up from school early so we could make it to the meet in time, but we took forever to find parking and ended up missing the first half of Jay's four lap 1600 meter race. We got there partway through and cheered him to the finish line. It was his first race with his buzz cut, and he cruised to a 9 second PR, shrinking his mile time down to 6:46. A little while later, he ran the 400 meter dash in 1:30. In the car on the way home, I let the kids vote on where to go for dinner. They voted Costco, two to one, so off we went for a hot dog, pizza, and a chicken bake, with soda for the girls and ice cream for the boy. Dinner of champions, haha.

We love Jay!

Feeling victorious right after his race!

Thai noodles are my favorite.

The before picture.

He eventually smiled to humor his mother.

Jay's hair was quite long, but it was still tricky to braid because it was not used to being pulled back. The strands kept springing out of my grasp and pointing forwards again. Eventually I tamed it into some very cool braids.

Jay wore his cool braids for a few hours before asking for his haircut.

A lock of Jay's long gorgeous hair! 

All buzzed up and ready for summer! Now, if only the weather would get the memo and warm up.

Track meet number two: at West Valley in Yakima. It is incredibly hard to remember to take pictures while cheering for my own child in a race! 

"Let's get four or five things" at Costco turned into a cart full, haha. Worth it!

Eating Costco dinner in the car--Costco food is either packed with dairy or hot dogs, so I opted to snack on mini cucumbers and wait till we got home to have a delicious sandwich made from the fresh rotisserie chicken and rustic bakery bun.