Feet...

Once a year Buckner Elementary School in La Grange, Kentucky holds the Buckner Bear Run. This is the annual fund raiser for the PTA. Claude and I have attended each year and to watch Hayden and Bailey run their laps. The last two years Michael has been one of the parent leaders of the kids on one of the fields. 

Basically it works like this, the kids get sponsors for the laps they run. A parent is set at each corner of a rectangular field. Each child has a piece of paper with their name on it pinned to the back of their shirt. The kids do warm up exercises with the parent leader. The class is divided into four groups. Each groups is sent to a corner of the rectangular field. The run begins and the kids run outside the four corners of the rectangle. When they return to their starting point, the parent at their starting corners puts a hash mark on the paper on the kids shirt and the kid goes for another lap. When the time is up, the hash marks are counted and the kids sponsors pay accordingly. The length of time the classes runs increases as they get older.

Yesterday Hayden ran on one of the outdoor soccer fields at 10:05am.  Michael was the parent leader at the field next to where Hayden ran. Michael would wander over every now and then and watch Hayden run. He even ran a bit with him. Hayden ran 26 laps.  He just paced himself and never stopped running the entire time.

Then Claude and I went to the cafeteria and took lunch to Bailey at 11:20 and Hayden at 11:34.  We had a bit of a break after lunches when we sat on the benches in the main entry hallway of the school.

At 12:25 we headed to the gym for Bailey's run. Michael was moved inside to lead her group. Bailey also ran the entire time. At one point she and a friend ran several laps holding hands and pausing at the same time to get their hash marks without letting go of each others hands. Bailey ran 30 something laps. Her field was smaller than Hayden's. Her class also had Buddy Bear join them for their class picture after their run.

Now, back to sitting in the long entry hallway after lunch.  Claude and I were digitally engaged (he was playing a game on his cell phone and I was reading on my Kindle) when I felt a tickle on my left foot. I kept reading and simply moved my right foot to scratch the top of my left foot. Wrong Move!!  It was another yellow jacket and it immediately stung me. I felt that familiar stinging pain and moved the yellow jacket off my foot with my sandal and smashed the yellow jacket into the floor.

I grabbed a wet wipe out of my purse and cleaned the area on my foot really well and left the cool wet wipe on my foot.  I had already taken an antihistamine before going out onto the field to watch Hayden and couldn't take anymore. By last night my foot was quite swollen. I woke up twice during the night and slathered my foot in anti-itch medicines. This morning the swelling is down a little but it is still pretty swollen.

This is what I find amazing now that I have been stung 4 times within the last month or so.

1. That initial sting is only a prelude to a series of stinging pains that will follow over an extended period of time. This time I was stung about 12:30pm and even as we drove home at 6:30pm last night I was still have running stinging pains running through my foot and up my leg. How can such a tiny insect do that?
2. There is nothing more satisfying when you are as swollen as this and it itches so very badly than taking your long finger nails and lightly rubbing over the top of the swollen area. I'm not talking scratching, although that carries its own set of joy. Every single nerve that ever existed in your foot or hand is alive with joy as you gently moved your finger nails over the affected area.
3. When you walk or use that swollen foot, you feel the nerves all the way up to your shoulder. You can tell how they each connect and feel each of them. It is not just the foot but all the way up to my shoulder.

I know this will go down in another day. It should be fun to wear shoes of some sort the Church tomorrow. It is the Primary Children's Sacrament Meeting Program tomorrow and that requires movement and provides no time for resting the foot.

I posted on Facebook that I have now proven that 'as we age we become sweeter'.  This must be true as, in the nine years we have lived in Kentucky, I have not been stung one time by a bee or wasp or yellow jacket. This year in a short span of time I have been stung four times. One of those was while sitting inside an elementary school. Therefore...I have proven that as we age we become sweeter!!