"1040"...Not a bad number...or is it?

So, Hannah had a jump-a-thon for her school last Friday. I was worried when she brought home the paper about it because she has always struggled with jumping rope. It always seems to get tangled up in her hair or around her feet. My heart was aching as I watched her practice and become frustrated because she only made it to "2". I kept encouraging her, letting her know that it takes lots of practice to get to the higher numbers but the progress seemed rather slow. My mom and I filled out the "pledge sheet" with our pledges per-jump and sent it to school with her.

As the week progressed I noticed that Hannah was doing much better with her jumping than she had in the beginning of the week and her devotion to practicing was amazing!! I wish she felt as motivated about keeping her room clean. Anyway, I had come to the conclusion that Hannah would jump about a hundred jumps during the 1 hour jump-a-thon.

So, the day came and Greg & I went to go support Hannah's first jump-a-thon. It was kind of chilly but we stuck it out! Hannah started off pretty well but then the rope kept getting tangled. She almost broke down because she was so sad that she had worked so hard and was doing as well as she had hoped. Greg and I both took turns giving her a pep-talk, letting her know that we believe in her and that she can reach her goal, whatever it may be. So, after a short rest and some asthma medicine (it was cold outside and the cold air mixed with jumping triggered it) Hannah was up and jumping again. I noticed that she had started jumping in ten-jump intervals and that they were becoming much more frequent than at the beginning. At one point, Hannah asked how long she had left and I informed her that she had only been jumping for 20 minutes, so she had 40 minutes left. I could see the discouragement in her eyes. Greg swooped in to lift her spirits while I checked with the tally-girl to see where Hannah was at. I about died when the girl told me 300 jumps!!! I calmly walked over to Greg and told him the total and our eyes seemed to be saying to each other, "what do we do?!?" So, me being the budget-minded mother, I begin encouraging Hannah that if she was tired, that she should take a break. I offered her a drink and made sure to make more opportunities for pictures. I thought Greg was on the same page as me until I heard him ask Hannah what her goal was. When she said 1000 jumps, my heart skipped a beat. Greg came back and informed me that he was going to encourage her and help her reach her goal. I looked at him in disbelief and reminded him of our per-jump pledge. He didn't seem to care. He wanted to help Hannah feel like she succeeded by helping her reach her goal. I had to walk away a few times as she just kept cranking out those 10-jump intervals.

So, as you have probably guessed, Hannah jumped 1040 jumps, which I was very surprised about. I couldn't believe how much she had progressed during the week to reach that kind of goal. I was very proud of her, I really was!! I took lots of pictures but I will add them later. (we have a new computer and I'm not sure how to download on this one. Greg has to give me the tutorial first :).

Ok, so I know you all are wondering how much my mother and I had pledged........10 cents per jump!!!!! So, for those of you who aren't good with the math part, both her and I owe $104 for the jump-a-thon!!!! HOLY SMOKES!!! But Hannah did learn a valuable lesson as she worked through her emotions and kept reaching for her goal. I'm amazed at what she was able to accomplish and when I took the final picture of her holding the counting sheet, her proud little face was worth the $104.....for sure :)

But when Gabe is in 1st grade, the goal can be the same but the pledge will not!!!!