Regionals

The whole family (kids, parents, grandparents) packed up and headed over to Greensboro Saturday morning to watch the kids from Katie's school at their Odyssey of the Mind regional competition.

Note to my husband: When I say I want to leave at 6:30 am and follow it with "Did you remember to set the alarm?" and you say, "Yes.", I am assuming that you set it for a reasonable time.

Reasonable, so that when the alarm goes off and you lay there, because you know I will get up and shower first, I do not then shower and dress and head out to the kitchen in search of coffee and glance at the clock and see that it is FIVE OH FREAKING FOUR in the morning. Although it was awesome to get up at 4:45, especially after a night of fitful sleep with a coughing baby. Thank you.

(And I do not need to hear "get your own alarm clock!", so shut it.)


I forgot the card table they needed for a prop. Luckily, my mom was an hour behind us and said she'd bring it, no problem. Except she forgot it, too. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it? Katie's coach brought an extra and so the day was saved. Briefly.

Katie's team problem was the Unhinged Structure, which is a wee little thing made of balsa wood that has to support x amount of weight. They team had to create a skit around it, involving additional folding structures, props and costumes. The awesome thing about OM is that there can be NO adult involvement. Everything is kid driven. Something needs a little piece of tape? Kid has to do it. Kid has to think about it. No adult help or suggestions or instruction.

So when something is wrong, like the structure is a little bit too short, the kids have to fix it. And the parents have to huddle around and bite their nails while the kids are doing it WRONG WRONG WRONG. The kids were stressing, the parents were stressing, and I had to walk away.


I was so impressed at how cool the kids stayed, how they focused in a worked hard to try to come up with a solution. Throughout this process, I've heard stories and seen examples of just how creative and resilient kids can be. Much more so than their parents, sometimes.

They did a great job on their performance and we went off to stuff ourselves silly with Five Guys and Frogurt and await the results. Both teams from her school ended up with third place trophies and we are all so incredibly proud. Katie was a little disappointed (she was already planning where we were going to stay for the World Competition. Forget State Finals, she was already at World!), but it was an awesome experience and she's already looking forward to next year.

All parents owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the parents and teachers who volunteer their time to coach after school programs. These programs take a lot of time and effort on the part of the adult volunteers, who have to deal with not only the kids, but the parents as well. THANK YOU a million times over to those who committed their time to Odyssey of the Mind this year; Katie loved every minute of it.