My little girl participated in a spelling bee today for area independent schools.
She didn't make it as far as she would have liked (she won this one last year), but she makes us proud!
She has another bee coming up next month and you can rest assured that she and her Mom will be preparing. I am so impressed by the diligence displayed- first by my wife, and now by my little girl.
Night after night, they have drilled for the spelling bee. It reminded me of Baron Von Steuben, he's the guy from Prussia-Germany that showed up about this time of year in 1778, to help General George Washington whip the troops into shape at Valley Forge.
Von Steuben brought what he had gleaned from a methodical German culture along with his own military training in Russia, and helped change the course of history. Valley Forge had nearly been the breaking point for Washington and his vagabond army: soldiers were wearing women's clothes - anything to try and keep out the cold; by some accounts they dined on horse-flesh; it has been said that one could follow another soldier simply by tracing his bloody footprints in the snow. Morale was terrible.
Von Steuben introduced discipline to military life, he helped design a manual for drilling, taught the men how to layout the camp, and introduced procedures to greatly increase the speed of firing their weapons. After that winter at Valley Forge, the troops emerged with a new confidence.
Now I look at my own "Von Steuben" ... my wife. She is - with a steady, but calm vigil - introducing discipline into our home. There is a strong sense of focus.
I admire that. And I believe that it is part of the blessing God provides in a marriage when He places people together that are different. They balance each other.
Now, she may have her hands full with child #2 though ... AA is more like his Dad: we feel that we are put here to ad levity.
In fact, now that I think of it, the girls never do seem to appreciate AA and my efforts to keep the atmosphere light during these nightly spelling maneuvers.
Like when we walk through and call out spelling words like: "deoxyribonucleic acid ", or "endoplasmic reticulum" (see, I knew 10th grade Cell Biology would come in handy some day!).
Or when we introduce eclectic ways of using a word in a sentence like:
cornea - "My jokes are cornea than yours!"
Upon closer examination, perhaps we are something of a distraction.
Just think, if Von Steuben had had to put up with the likes of AA and I - we might all be speaking English today!
Source: http://www.ushistory.org/ValleyForge/served/steuben.html
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