She Loves Me… She Loves… OUCH!!!!!!

Ethan ran his last race yesterday. He came in 4th - which wasn’t bad considering what he was up against.

This was a pretty emotional race for me because the last two weeks hasn’t been that great for the team. They lost two of their best runners and my all-time favorite coach. I don’t want to go into the details because it was basic bullshit. Losing the top two runners made Ethan #3 on the team. Yet somehow with the dismissal of the younger coach - the older coach bumped Ethan from Varsity to Frosh-Soph again.

Still, one of the two dismissed runners (I’ve mentioned him before as “T” - he’s a senior this year so he won’t be there next year) came out there to warm up with Ethan (really only known as Freshie) and to run back and forth across the track to yell and him and cheer him on as he ran. I don’t know who I was more proud of “T” or Ethan for having such a kick-ass friend.

Then after the race one of the other runners, a total cutie, finally told Ethan that she was interested in him. This after he had told her the same thing TWO WEEKS ago. Apparently out of sheer joy and exuberation Ethan was acting like a typical jackass managed to fall over someone’s backpack and sprain his ankle, severely. Luckily, the girl didn’t see this or she might have changed her mind.

Apparently he went sheet white and almost passed out. “T” carried him across the field where the other guys (all Seniors with prior injuries) examined the ankle and decided what was wrong with him. He said he didn’t remember much but a somewhat fuzzy conversation between “T” and Seal (another runner).

He called us in a panic to come pick him up. Mike rushed over to the school (we had just gotten home from watching him race) and brought him home. Ethan hobbled to the front door and when I saw him through the window I ran out and carried him into the house.

This is where I began to walk the fine line between Mom of the Year and Mommy Dearest.

I brought him in and started icing his ankle. I made him eat something, gave him some pain meds (over the counter) and then… due to his shaking and being extremely upset (he’s never really screwed up his ankles before) I might have encouraged him to have a little nip to take the edge off.

And, what it did was much like shearing the side off a cliff.

Pretty soon it was “I love you Mommy!” and (my personal favorite) “Those guys… those other runners… man… they were MUCHO FASTO!” (nearly a year of Spanish the kid says MUCHO FASTO).

Fortunately, it took the edge off enough for me to get him into the shower, in fact, were it not for the severe limp I might have gotten a strip tease out of it. Ok, not that bad, because he is his mother’s son and not prone to exhibition or public nudity - well, at least his own, the public nudity of others is usually encouraged, by both of us.

I had to close my eyes and wrap a towel around him so as not to see anything when I was helping him in and out of the shower. He’s lucky that between the two of us we didn’t fall through the glass door.

Still, I can’t stand a stinky, sweaty, sticky kid… just CAN’T. So if he hadn’t hopped in the shower I might have been forced to carry him out to the backyard and hose him off.

We set him up in his room where he reverted back to comfort movies… 007 - From Russia With Love. There is nothing that a Bond Girl can’t make better, I suppose.

Now he hops from place to place with Maggie laughing her ass off at him and usually sticking her tongue and saying, “You can’t catch me” only to have Ethan reply, “I know that!”