Super Speller

My oldest son, Cameron, just made it to the all-school spelling bee at his school. He's in 4th grade, and so he would be competing against 4th and 5th graders in front of a full cafeteria of every 4th and 5th grader at his school, plus teachers and a ton of parents. Pretty nerve-wracking for an otherwise pretty shy kid.

The night before, during our prayer time, he said, "Dad, I don't think I want to do this. And I definitely don't want to win, because then everyone will be looking at me." I feel like God gave me an opportunity to talk to Him about complete dependence on God. I almost talked to him about visualizing everyone in their underwear, but thought that was a little creepy for a 4th grader. I said, "Buddy, just take some deep breaths, and just before your name is called, pray and ask Jesus to give you the strength to get up there and do your best. It's just you and the word-giver up there. Ignore everyone else."

Ang and I went up to the school the next day to watch him, and I just have to say, whomever asked the word-reader lady to be the word-reader lady should be taken out back to the woodshed. Her thick Georgia-sticks accent totally made several kids miss. Words like ACORN and WILLING were pronounced AKERN and WILLIN. Cameron got up on his turn and nailed "nightmare" or NAHTMAYER, as word-reader lady said. He made it until there were only about 10 kids left and misspelled THORNY, THORNEY. Tricky little buggar of a word...

Anyway, I'm really proud of him. He does so much really good. He's super smart and creative and kind and tender-hearted, and most people say he's just like his dad. :) He's a great kid, and I'm proud to be his dad.