I just have to brag a little bit

I don't know how many of you knew that Hayden was enrolled in a "Budding Authors" session of College for Kids at Mercer University this summer. She also did a session of "Math Wizards" and thoroughly enjoyed both of them. Well, this past weekend we had the ceremony to present the kids with their bound and published works! Each child in the BA program had one of their stories picked out and published in a book of all the works from all this BA kids this summer. Hayden was super excited. She says she has always wanted to see her name in print. Maybe that's why we had to get an L drive notebook to hold all the stories she has been writing!! She also got a trophy for her MW session. The best thing about that was her comment "I never knew math could be so fun!" And that seems to have held over this year since she is doing great in math with no complaining about how awful it is!

At the ceremony on Sunday, Hayden was so nervous about walking up on stage that I thought she was going to throw up. She wouldn't even look at me as I tried to take a picture. So of course being the Mom that I am I took 8 consecutive pictures of her not looking at me until she finally looked at me with this grimace and said "Are you happy? Now go away!" Such sweetness!

Imagine 8 pics exactly like this until.....

This was the go away pic, not a smile, but I think I proved my point!

They had the kids sitting in one section with the parents in the other two. She sat near the back in the same row as us, right near us. Once the ceremony started I think all she could think about was getting the book and finding her story. She looked over at me and asked if she could move up a few rows (at this time they were working on the second row). I told her it was fine for her to move. So she scoots right up to the third row so that she is the next row to go. She stood in the line peering around the other kids at the stage. Then when her name was called she hopped up there, gave a little curtsy to the dean of Mercer, accepted her book, accepted her trophy and then hot-footed it off the stage. She wouldn't even pause for a picture! She then jetted to her seat where she instantly began flipping through to find her story. I kept looking over there and never saw her head raised again as she read it over and over. After the ceremony she was all smiles, I'm surprised her mouth didn't hurt from the huge smile. But if it did, it was a good pain, because as she pointed out "I'm a published author, Mom." Look out world, here she comes!

Hayden with the Mercer Bear

The book

The start of her story. It's actually 2 pages long.