Spelling Bee

Today was the Spelling Bee at Nicole elementary school; she was really excited this morning and didn’t seem the least bit nervous. There we 20 kids participating in the Bee - my heart went out to one boy who was painfully shy when the time came for each participant to walk up to the microphone to state their name and grade, he looked as if he might pass out, and it took him several minutes to build up enough courage just to say his first name (you could barely hear him), then there was another long pause prior to his saying his last night, and then he finally got out his grade – bless his heart.



Nicole spoke into the microphone like a pro (that public speaking class last year paid off!) She had great diction, and seemed comfortable. The first word to stump one of the students was corduroy; don’t ask me why I remember that, maybe because I was wearing cords.


Nicole made it through several rounds before the dreaded word neutralize, shattered her plans. She is so much like her Daddy… “You all must be going for second place, because I’ve got first all hemmed up”, that’s a paraphrase from the great Larry Bird, but it is a perfect fit for Eric and Nicole!


She did manage to make it off the stage and walk over to me BEFORE the tears over took her. She collapsed on my lap and had a good cry, but quickly pulled herself together and watched the rest of the Bee. I was so proud of her, being 1 of 20 from the entire school to make it to this round of the Spelling Bee, what an accomplishment! Way to go Nicole!!!


When there were only two students left things became very interesting, in one round they both missed the word and it went back in forth with the painfully shy boy and another boy. In the end the shy boy misspelled his word, the other boy was able to spell it correctly, plus his next word and was declared the winner! It was great fun watching the whole process.

TTFN!ReBecca