Caleb's Got Game

S is for spider.

Tonight we had family home evening.  As we were getting ready to have our closing prayer, Caleb announced that he had a game for us to play.  My initial reaction was to think that it really was getting late and we didn't have time for some silly game he made up on the  fly.  But instead I indulged him and let him do his thing.  I was surprised.  He had a game that he had planned in advance and really put a lot of thought into.  He was so thrilled that he was given the opportunity to have us play it.

Caleb is 4, and just started Kindergarten.  He loves it!  In his class they study a different letter each week.  They practice the letter, eat food that starts with the letter, and the teachers even dress up as something that starts with that letter.  Last week was 'S', which is why Caleb made that lovely googley eyed spider hat above.  He calls it a "pider" - so much for all the 'S' training.  This week it is 'M'.  Yesterday Caleb came to me with a little baggie with dozens of little 'S's and 'M's that he had obviously cut out from somewhere.  He was so excited.  "I found m's and s's!"  I was a little concerned and asked him what books or magazines he had found those letters in, but he couldn't remember.  Yikes! I guess I'll find out soon enough. I quickly located for him a stack of old magazines and he continued merrily cutting out tiny little letters all morning for his little baggie.  I don't know what he is planning on doing with them.  Maybe he can use them for ransom notes one day.

So Caleb stood up at FHE to introduce his game very authoritively.  He handed everyone a new, not-for-cutting magazine, and announced that we were going to have a race.  When he said go, we would each have to find a capital 'S', a lower case 's', a capital 'M', and a lowercase 'm'.  When we found all 4, we would raise our hand, and he would come check our answers.  He had another little baggie that contained little strips of paper that he had carefully written each of our names on.  After showing him our found letters, we had to close our eyes, and stick our hand in the baggie and pull out a slip.  If it was our own name, we won.  He had really planned this and was very clear on the rules of play.  We all had fun playing his game.  Derek cheated and Caleb yanked his magazine away and told him he was out of the game.  Too funny.  Caleb was thrilled at the success of his game, and I was pleased that it didn't last too long.  Caleb is such a cute, one-of-a-kind kid.

Oh, and he is so funny because a school when a kid does something good, they earn a reward called a "Super U" that they can accumulate and buy prizes with at the "Super U" store.  Only Caleb always calls it a "Super Me."  Now thats a kid with confidence!

I also love that he calls a watermelon a "waterlemon".  That cracks me up every time.