What a crazy busy day that is almost over even though it feels like I just got up.

E did great in the spelling bee this a.m.! There were 50 kids, from all 8 schools in the city/town. She came in 11th. She lasted longer than I expected her to, and I feel like a horrible mother to say such a thing. I know she's a strong speller with an excellent vocabulary, and we had spent most of our time working on her weakest area - teaching her to go slow, and picture the word in her mind. Because if she didn't, she'd skip entire syllables, just from going quickly.

I thought, though, that she was going up against people who were taking this a hell of a lot more seriously than we were (because E really didn't want to - she had low practice tolerance, and wasn't that interested in becoming a Spelling Bee Zombie).

Now that we're on the other side -- I don't think that was the case at all. I think most people were in it for fun. Some kids got out on simple words, some on harder words. There didn't seem to be too much hand-wringing, and I saw little to no tears when people got out.

I was proud of E's performance. She was, too. She got out on the word "procession." When she first sat down, she was in very good spirits, and said she felt good about how she did (she survived probably 7 or 8 rounds). She got more and more agitated, though, as the remaining rounds were full of words she knew. A friend of hers (the last from our school, E was the second to last from our school on stage) got out on "acquaintance" and I asked E "do you know this word?" and she said yes. Her friend dropped the first "c," though, and I asked E if she would have gotten that "c," and she said no, she really wouldn't have.

Later, after her irritation at the easier words (like "monitor"), she said she felt good at the 4th round, like that was far enough to believe "I am smart" and she knew she'd be fine with getting out at any point after that. I think 9 kids were cleared on that round.

We brought a friend of J's home with us from the Bee, and we fed them, and had some calls back and forth with her mom to plan what was next --- I ended up taking the 3 girls to a play being put on by the group the girls often are a part of. They took the winter off because of the school play.

The girls were great and happy and the play was fine - but starting when we walked out the door to the play, I had a headache brewing. At the half-way of the play, my head started to feel like it would surely explode. I came home and tried to rest, but J is coughing like mad - a deep chest cough full of gunk, and I had to stop resting in order to find and administer child-appropriate medication.

Beloved acquired a Greek cookbook at the library yesterday, and the smells comign from the kitchen have my stomach scrambling to get out of my body so it can go be with the food. Man, does it smell fantastic. I can't wait for dinner.

Labels: beloved, cooking, food, kids, weekends

posted by Zuska @ 7:22 PM

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