Proud Papa

Tonight we experienced our first County-wide Spelling Bee.  Shelbi, who won her school spelling bee, along with one of her best friends made it to the final four.  Megan WON!

It's a pretty cool story too, because she had a school project due today as well.  Megan had to create a short term goal and then determine some steps on how to reach that goal.  Megan's short term goal was to win the Spelling Bee and she accomplished that goal.  Pretty cool.

Entering the Spelling Bee Shelbi made all kinds of excuses to not study her words.  She felt that there was little chance of her getting to the final four.  Shelbi was within one letter of getting to the final two.  The word was vicariously.  We thought she had done it...V I C A R I O U S E L Y. One lousy "E" kept her out. Once she missed that word Megan became the winner, and then Shelbi entered a spell off for second and third place.  During the spell off she had several hard words and it seemed she could have spelled the competitors words with ease.  She ended up fourth. One place away from a trophy and a savings bond and was noticeably distraught.  Who wouldn't be disappointed coming so close to a reward and yet falling just short?

Tough stuff for my little girl.  It was like losing three times.

I was quite proud.  It wasn't so much that she had made it all the way to fourth.  It wasn't that she had spelled croquet or mystique correctly.  It was how she handled herself in defeat.  She cried a little, and the Shelbi I knew before Christ began a good work in her would have responded with anger.  Anger more at showing her emotions in public, then angry at losing.  She graciously took compliments of several people, and she was happy for her friend.

I think that while it would have been nice to be the parent of the Spelling Bee Champ.  In a way God gave us the opportunity to see evidence that this little girl, our first born, is going to be quite a woman.  A thoughtful young lady with perspective beyond her years.

When you can be proud of your kids in how they handle defeat there is a level of satisfaction that all of this teaching and modeling and questioning and rule making and integrity actually makes a difference.  At least it did tonight as I saw one handle victory with grace and one handle defeat with grace.  It was a great night to be a Daddy.