Awesome 3000

I just want to preface this post, with that I LOVE my daughter with all my heart, all I want is for her to feel "normal" whatever that means. I want to push her to her limits and let nothing stand in her way. To EXCEED everyone's expectations!

That said, We decided to have her compete in the Awesome 3000 today, for those of you that don't know it's a HUGE run for kids of all different ages. They do have a "special needs" run that is 300m, but I knew Lora can run further than that, her age group would run 1500m, so we decided to sign her up to run with her typical peers. I contacted them before to see if I could run with her because well she'd end up who knows where and with all those kids, they told me I couldn't go with her, but they'd have a "runner" I thought, Cool. So today we arrive, we get her to the staging area, and we meet her runner, and she's set to go, she's excited she's going to run. I'm beaming with pride that wow, she can do this. I was almost in tears I was bursting with pride, the race lady even made a comment at how confident Lora seemed. I told the highschooler to push her because she will test them, but she can do it.

We squeeze into a spot along the fence to watch Miss Lora, we can see that they are about to start, and we have the perfect start. THe race is on! So we see tons of kids coming, No Lora, hmmm, let's be patient now. Finally we see her, she's the last one and walking, I'm crushed, it hasn't even been 100m, and that girl can SPRINT the length of a hop field. Oh and she has NO GLASSES on! I tell her helper (who is now someone different) to push her, she can do it, make her keep up and she will. So they get her jogging, and she turns the bend. We wait to see her come out the other side which is just a short distance, and nothing....Finally we see her, and she's walking again, this time she heads out into the baseball field, and then they get her back, and then she's out in the trees, and then she's out of our sight distance.

So the girls start to come in and the lady beside me says, do you need me to move because she knew we had a little girl, I said it's okay, I was assuming it'd be a little while.... Then the boys started to come in (they started after the girls), but there were still girls coming in. There are fewer and fewer coming in, it gets to the point where we are the ONLY ones standing on the fence. We saw a person go out, I kick myself because I should've asked if we could help, but I was hoping and PRAYING that he was going out for someone else. A late runner comes in with a helper and I asked the girl if they had seen a little girl, and she says oh you mean the one stuck on the playground. Finally all the volunteers are coming in from the course and I ask if we can help and they let Jer go back, but Lora was just around the corner being carried, that stinker.

She got her medal for finishing

So what do I say, my spirit was crushed, what started as tears of pride, turned out to be tears of sadness. I know she can do it, but she knows she can get away with things. Now I have to give credit to the helpers, they've all probably never even met a person with Down syndrome, they are young, and of course don't feel comfortable being firm with someone they've just met, and Lora needs firmness, or she'll take advantage of you! I know winning isn't everything, and I assumed she'd be close to the end if not last, but I also had hoped that she'd actually be cooperating. It sometimes is embarrasing, because I feel maybe I'm not hard enough on her, what can I do differently to get her to listen to directions. I think I will try one more year if they will let me, but I'll ask if I can "volunteer" and be her runner, this was her very first "official" race, new things can sometimes be hard for her to understand.