A Little Bragging on My Nickels

Nickels is shaping up to be just like his Daddy: smarter than a whip when it comes to math.

Back in October, he tested to represent the 5th grade in the "Math Olympics" competition that is held in February.

He tested. We waited. And waited. And finally, just after Christmas break, we found out Nickels qualified in "reasoning". The competition would take place on February 25th.

Then, last week, we received the rather disappointing news that Nickels' school had chosen, due to budgetary constraints, NOT to renew their membership with the organization that sponsors both the Spelling and Math Olympics.

That meant, even though Nickels qualified, there would be no team from his school going to competition this year. Needless to say, everyone here was really bummed.

Today, Nickels came home on cloud nine. He had something to share with me and Mike but, completely consistent with his nature*, he couldn't locate the very thing he wanted to show us.

Thankfully, about 10 minutes later, he came running into the kitchen. He was holding three ribbons that represented how he had done on his testing.

The first indicated he ranked "Superior", the highest rank available. The second showed he would progress to the regional competition. And the last showed he placed fourth, out of 69 students!

He was so incredibly proud of his accomplishment. As you can imagine, so were Mike and I.

And then, Nickels shared some really fun news: the headmaster is trying to work a deal and there is still a chance that the students will be able to attend after all.

Or, as Nickels likes to put it "And, the best part of all? In late February I get an entire day off school!"

I'm not going to remind him that, on his math "skip" day, he'll be working math problems from dawn to dusk**. I fear that would send him so off the charts of ecstasy that we might never bring him back down to Earth***.

Congrats, Nickels! So very, very proud of you!


*Disorganized. Inherited that from me. So sorry, sweetie.

**He sees tests as a chance to prove how much he knows in the shortest period of time possible. No test anxiety here AT ALL, especially if it involves math.

***This would be a sickness he shares with his Daddy.