Coach Mom and the Pep Talk.

Coach Mom and the Pep Talk.

Every mother has it.

That little ESP where she can look about a room and size up any windfalls or downfalls her child will suffer through.

My youngest and I pulled up to the start of the Real Buckhead Road Race 5K on Saturday.

It soon became evident, there were more children his age than normal running a small race like this. Which was great. Or could be not so great.

Depending what scenario played out.

Scenario one: He races his young friends full speed till his breath fails then he good-naturedly walks and runs the rest of the race.

The second and more likely scenario: He races full speed till his breath fails and he stops right there — not moving another millimeter forward.

The competitive spirit that drove him to almost puke beating a 55-year-old woman to the finish last weekend will swamp him with anger at not keeping up with friends. Why is this the more likely scenario? Because it has happened. Leaving me stranded with an angry child who will not move. One. More. Inch.

But I’m an old pro at this mother biz. Let the slight prospect of a major meltdown bobbing on the horizon stop me?

Never.

Besides. We had already picked up our numbers.

Before the race. All was posey rosey.

The gun sounded — or maybe there was a nice man who said, “Go” — and we were off.

Sure enough. Soon enough my linebacker strained to keep up with the wideouts.

And before too long . . .

But we kept moving forward.

Until his side-stitch-of-a-cramp paralyzed him like Botox in a midlife furrow.

He wasn’t moving.

Pooh.

This is when I called on my decades of child psychology to keep that boy stepping forward.

“Mom. Mom. I don’t want to go anymore. My side hurts.”

“Just walk it off. Keep moving. It will get better,” I said a bit too peppy for me. I’m a positive sort but not rah-rah so this came out rather like telling all my friends “so glad you made cheerleading when I didn’t because really I only tried-out to watch your triple backflips up close.”

Smile. Smile. Ugh.

We had only gone one mile of three.

Double ugh. Smile. Smile. “You can do this Joe. You got to finish the race to wear the shirt right?”

“No,” was his reply.

And then a little Christmas miracle happened at the 1.34 mile point.

A wide receiver came back to play with my linebacker who had evolved into a lineman.

Skipping and walking and trying “not to step on the road.” Then “trying not to step on the yellow,” the wideout and the lineman forged ahead.

We all skipped along for the last few miles.

Finally, we saw the finish looming up there.

Thank God.

Afterwards, nothing like some pancakes to really work a cramp out of your side.

Yes, my running buddy and I hit the high school cafe for pancakes and all was better.

You know, it was a great morning.

A sweet wide receiver came back and helped his lumbering lineman friend (and the lineman’s mama who was running out of tricks) finish the race.

And my son didn’t meltdown with disappointment. He rose to the challenge and played the ball where it lay that morning.

A raging cramp-in-the-side was a crummy lie.

Like I told the boys. “We might have been one of the last ones to finish, but we beat everyone who stayed in bed that morning.”

Not that staying in bed on a Saturday is such a bad thing. But you didn’t hear it from me.

Have you ever had to coach a child through disappointment?

Tough huh?