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Dale loves to run. I do not love to run.

Zeke once listed our family by order of speed. “Josiah is fastest. Daddy is second. Zeke is third. Abby is fourth. Gabe is fifth. Mommy is last, ” he informed us all. When his two older siblings objected to being slower than him, he reluctantly rearranged the order. “Josiah is fastest. Daddy is second. Abby is third. Gabe is fourth. Zeke is fifth. Mommy is still last,” he said.

Admittedly, my last place position is warranted. Josiah has taken after his father and loves to run. Abby and Gabe have taken after me and run when they must. Zeke has been a bit of a tossup since he loves to run, but also loves to stop.

After watching Josiah run throughout the Cross Country season, Zeke declared he wanted to enter a race. So, Dale entered himself  and Josiah into the 5k Turkey Trot and Zeke into the 1 mile kid’s Turkey Trot in Fredericksburg on Thanksgiving morning.

Zeke lined up for the race with boys and girls 6 and under alongside his two handlers Dale and Josiah. The pistol fired and he took off at a sprint. It took Dale and Josiah two blocks to catch up with him. I saw Zeke pass the 1 mile mark with a look of pain and agony on his face, he was running hard.

Zeke Running with Josiah

He finished with a time of 10:45, 61 out of 145. All runners who finished received a medal. He was proud of himself.

Zeke's Finishing Sprint

Then “the losing someone in a crowd drama” occurred when Dale, Josiah, and Zeke  walked one way and I walked another. I lost them in the crowd of 2415 5k runners and their families. I was wearing a bright red jacket and hoped that if I stood in the middle of the road intersection ahead of the start, they would see me. They were on the top of the steps of the library in the hopes that I would see them.

I had both my and Dale’s cell phones and with the 5k race fast approaching, I prayed quite a few frantic prayers and asked various people I knew if they had seen them. Losing someone in a crowd is quite unsettling. Thankfully, they saw me and Zeke did not have to run the 5k.

The first runners to finish were two Kenyan runners from Chapel Hill, NC. They finished together at 14:35. It was amazing to watch the sprint to the finish. I saw Josiah just after 20 minutes. The guy next to him said, “Come on little man,” and started to sprint. I think he was a bit surprised when Josiah out sprinted him as well as the guy in front of him to finish at 20:11 (99 out of 2415).

Dale’s training this autumn had been a bit lackluster compared to Josiah’s. He finished at 24:17 (387 out of 2415 runners). This time I stayed where I was and let Dale find me. They all ate their bagels and cookies, drank their water and gatorade and got their turkey t-shirts.

The Happy Finishers

When we got home, Zeke was complaining to Gabe that he hadn’t gotten to do anything fun yet. Gabe replied, “What? You just got to run a race. That’s fun!” Zeke answered, “Running a race isn’t fun.”

So, the child remains an even division between Dale and I. He wants to run the race like Dale, but he sure doesn’t consider it fun. A bit of his mother in him there.

If my life were a play, the audience would watch me reenact various scenes over and over again. One of those repetitive scenes played out again this morning. The scene could be titled “search for the missing item.” This morning, I searched in increasing irritation for a “library book about dogs,” which is due today but will not be returned, for I could not find it.

I have begun to suspect that library books hide more diligently as they sense my irritation increase. They burrow farther under the covers, improve their camouflage beneath a pile of toys, hide quietly on a random book shelf, and visit rooms they should not.

As I search, I ask myself these questions: Why is this house such a mess? Why do we have so much stuff? Why can’t anyone put anything away? Why am I the only one who can find anything? Sometimes these questions stay in my head and sometimes, I must admit, I ask them loudly.

When I begin to search, my family has learned there are two choices: Search with me or Hide yourself as diligently as the library book. Every member of our family has lost something that I must search for, but none of the others lose things as often, or with as much flare as my eldest child.

Yesterday morning, I asked him where his school binder which contained his agenda, schedule and accompanist music was. He replied,”On the bus.” Now, keep in mind, he had ridden the bus to school the  morning prior. However,  because of cross country practice, he had not ridden it home.

When questioned as to why his binder was on the bus, he relayed the following tale: His binder kept falling off his seat onto the floor and he got tired of picking it up. So, he left it on the floor and told himself he would pick it up later. The bus arrived at school, he got off the bus, and the binder (hidden from sight in imitation of a library book) stayed on the floor.

So yesterday, I watched Josiah get on the bus and ask the bus driver if she had seen the binder. She shook her head no. I watched him slump into his seat and look at the floor. I watched him sit up without a binder and avoid looking at his mom for fear of the stink eye.

I drove home with this list of instructions of how to find the binder in my head. 1. Look under every seat on the bus. 2. Ask every single kid on the bus if they had seen it. 3. Go to the office and look in every lost and found box. 4. Find a responsible kid to search for you.

The binder was not the only thing he had forgotten that day. He had been given his accompanist dress uniform by the choir director. He placed the uniform next to his back pack on the gym floor and went to cross country practice. Then, after practice, he picked up his backpack and left the uniform behind. Thankfully, a teammate ran the uniform out to the car before we drove off.

So, I prayed as I often do, “Lord, show him grace once again and let someone else find it for him.” This prayer is very effective where Josiah is concerned, for a  girl in his class had found his binder and when she got on the bus, she handed it to him.

During the marriage conference last weekend, Dale and I were told, “there are some things that your spouse or your child cannot or will not change.” Dr. Chapman says his wife can only open drawers and doors, and therefore it is his job to close them. Dale and I have finally accepted it is his job to turn on lights and my job to turn off lights. We will no longer argue about lights.

Putting this concept in to practice, I have now come to realize it is my husband and children’s job to lose things and it is my job to find things. Of course,  I could do my job more effectively, if I could just discover where library books hide.