Tonight Cat and I lay in her bed and practiced some of this week’s spelling words which include critical, friends, drizzle and traffic. I had written out this week’s words on index cards, and she was trying to win them from me by spelling them correctly. Our rule is that if she spells a word correctly, she wins the card from me. If she spells any word incorrectly, I win her entire pile of (previously won) cards and she starts from scratch.
Because she has only had the cards for this week’s words one night, I expected to walk away with all of the cards. Normally, Monday night and Tuesday night are “my” nights to win with her running the table on me by Thursday. Apparently however, she had been cramming while I ran out to the dry cleaner and to do other errands because she spelled all twelve words correctly on her first try.
“I deserve a trophy,” she shouted jubilantly.
“Indeed you do,” I said. She and I both spied one of her Barbie dolls at the same time. I held it up and said “In recognition of your spelling prowess and your tremendous dedication to literacy, I hereby award you this trophy for hard work in learning new words and for perfect spelling performance,” I said, handing her the Barbie and then erupting into applause.
Cat beamed.
“Thank you,” she said, immediately slipping into acceptance speech mode. “I am very honored to have won this award. This really means a lot to me. I barely know what to say.”
The she paused and said with complete sincerity, “I would like to dedicate this to my mom, because without her, I would not be such a good speller and because she sounded out ‘traffic’ for me. Here Mom, this trophy is for you.”
My acceptance speech was a tearful, choked “I love you too Cat.”