The jumping beans

Yesterday the boys competed in the TDSB south region track and field meet at Varsity Stadium. Matthew in the triple jump, and Cal in the standing long jump. Who knew that our kids were champion jumpers?

Well, maybe not champions, but at least good enough to represent their school for their respective grades.

It was a beautiful warm, sunny day -  just perfect for an outdoor meet. Alan and I took the morning off work and walked up to the stadium, which is conveniently located on campus just a couple of blocks from our buildings. It was a pretty exciting event - there were several hundred people there, with jumping events going on in the center field concurrently with the running events on the track.

It was fun to watch the boys compete. They were both very serious about it. In an unusual display of restraint Cal sat quietly awaiting his turn. Perhaps nerves played a role?

And his jumping style left me in stitches. He looked so frog-like.

 

But style aside, he can jump 1.51 meters (almost 5 feet). Not bad for someone who just turned 7 and isn't anywhere near 5 feet tall yet! 

While Cal had been practicing at school and home, Matthew hadn't really been working on his jump. But the goofy look of intense concentration on his face while he was competing shows how very serious he was at the event.

They didn't appear to give out ribbons after Cal's event and we haven't heard anything, so we assume he isn't moving on to the city finals. Matthew placed 4th in his event, so he's moving on.

It's kind of funny that Matthew's moving on to the next round because he wanted to skip school the day they were doing the track meet because, as he put it, "I hate track and field".  He doesn't seem to hate it quite as much now - perhaps we'll make a track star of him yet!