Battlin' Bookworms

I'm going to preface this post by saying I am very tired. Very very tired. I slept on the couch last night to be near Moriah. She had thrown up around 10 pm and then wanted to sleep in our recliner with our pukey bucket handy. The couch was comfy enough, but I woke often, including the two times Bethany coughed herself awake and cried out. Consider yourself warned that I am tired enough that this may not make complete sense.

Thankfully, Moriah recovered quickly and was well enough to compete at the 5/6 Battle of the Books this afternoon. This is a reading competition that they have participated in for the last three years. It's reading books and answering questions for points, basically. Girdwood School had two teams go and Moriah and Susannah were on the same team. This year's questions seemed particularly detailed and hard. Even during practice the kids had trouble answering all of the questions.

Today's Battle questions were no different in difficulty. Both teams missed more questions than they wanted or expected and neither team placed in the top 8, but as their coach I am still very pleased with how well they did. They worked well as teams and they had a good time, two things that are much more important to me than what score they got. I also like to think that they encountered at least one or two new authors that they may not have otherwise discovered.

(insert tangent here: Last year, Moriah and Susannah were on the team that won the district competition for the 3/4 level of Battle. They actually aced the competition--didn't miss a single question. Their team was pretty proud of themselves last year and the girls had that lingering pride heading in to today. Both struggled with 'not even placing' at this year's Battle, but I do think they've already moved past those feelings and are okay with the results.)

Girdwood parents and kids went out to dinner afterwards, which I believe helped the kids decompress and shake off any blah feelings. It made the day a little longer, but it was worth it to see them laughing and joking with each other. Now, however, I am on the verge of nodding off while typing this. I have to get up early to head in for Samuel's 7/8 Battle competition tomorrow morning. On the road by around 7:45. Anyone who knows my night owl tendencies just said "yuck" on my behalf (thanks for the sympathy).

Good night! (heaves sigh that busy day number two is over)