Winner

As Kimball puts it, he's had a good competition month.


He and his VEX Robotics team were a part of the 1st place alliance that won in Denver and qualified to go to Nationals in March. (At the VEX competition, the boys had to maneuver a remote controlled robot that they had built and programed themselves to pick up objects and place them in storage hoops.)


Then, to his own amazement, he placed third in the District Spelling Bee and qualified to go to State, also in March.


For me, it felt very surreal watching Kimball win that spelling trophy.  I just can't believe he can spell like that.


I can't spell.  It's one of the two things I often tell people about myself as kind of a disclaimer.  The other one is that I'm directionally impaired.  At least that's what I've always called it.  I get lost very easily, even when I've been somewhere before.  I have to really pay attention to landmarks if I want to get back home after going somewhere new.  When I was earning my degree in Occupational Therapy, I learned the technical term is topographical disorientation.  But, hey, that's harder to spell.


So, on Saturday, I was sweating as the announcer presented Kimball with words like "repertoire" and "muumuu."  But Kimball spelled them with a nonchalance that hid the fact that he hadn't even thought he would pass the 100 word written test that took place earlier in the day.


If his direction sense wasn't so abysmal, I would swear he was switched at birth.


***I would like to thank spell check for making this post possible.