And the Crowd Goes Wild!

Gray's school did a read-a-thon fundraiser this month to raise money for a playground (the school is new but I guess didn't have enough in the budget for that).   So we read about 10 books a day.  At first it was easy since Gray loves books and we had at least 40 library books in the house.  Plus there is a wait between picking up Gray and picking up Joshua so that was a good time to read too.  But then it started getting old for one of us.  Especially if that person was asked to do the reading.  That person had a few choice words for the read-a-thon, but still kept chugging along while we reminded ourselves that we needed to work for the money we raised and help our school.

We found out yesterday that Gray won 1st place for most books read of kindergarteners.  I was pretty surprised considering I had no idea how many books would be considered a lot for a week long read-a-thon.  The awards assembly was today and Julia, Matt, and I were there to cheer him on.

Gray before school this morning, ready to be a rock star.

The assembly was pretty wild.  400 kids, kindergarten to 3rd grade, all screaming and kicking the bleachers in excitement, some even trying to start "the wave".  Gray was clearly very happy to have us there (when we walked into the gym, he stared us down until we saw him) but he gave a sort of half-smile, half straight face most of the time.

And then some of the teachers came out as Cat in the Hat characters and you can see here that he and he buddy in red thought that was pretty cool.

 Then the principal began announcing reading winners, starting with kindergarten and it got so loud.  You can see Gray covering his ears!  One sweet little girl went up to accept 3rd place (and everyone cheered), another sweet little girl was called for 2nd place, and then....I made a bad decision to take pictures instead of a video.  You'll have to try to get in the moment from my description...

 Gray's name was called and the crowd went WILD.  Girls screaming in high pitched voices, all eyes on Gray as he solemnly and quickly made his way across his classmates and down the steps.  I love the pat on the back he gets from his friend in red (sorry, haven't learned names yet!) and if you can click on the picture to make it bigger, check on the kid in the gray Duke sweatshirt because his shocked face is pretty priceless.

 Gray walked as fast as he could to the teachers to accept his award, nearly turning around before they could give him both the medal and a Barnes & Noble giftcard.  He hasn't been this focused on a mission in...ever.

 He went directly up to his teacher (note the little blond congratulating our celebrity) and handed her his giftcard before his could even sit down.  Either he thought it was important grownup stuff or he thought it was worthless paper:)  Then he enjoyed looking at his medal the rest of the assembly.

 The classes were dismissed and we got a couple more pictures as he passed by.  His class actually won the award for most books read of the kindergarten classes, so they get to display this trophy, which Gray's teacher kindly let him hold for our pictures.

 One final shot.  His expression is somber.  He knows what happened here today will go down in history.

It really was fun and funny to be there and we're happy that he got to experience winning something, though I had no idea was a huge celebration there would be for just reading some books together!