Henry, Nelson and the Bee

In the boys short 7 years on this Earth I have had many proud moments but I think none compare to the one we had yesterday.  Both boys qualified to enter the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition at their school.  Henry was the top in his class and Nelson by default, the actual winner was too nervous to stand up on stage.  Now, I'm not gonna lie and say this was an easy task, that we really didn't even study, because we did.. Over the entire Christmas break, in the car, before dinner, at restaurants, with Nana, we had our homemade flash cards and I crammed 200 words into their little brains.  Sometimes with grief and grumbling but mostly with full compliance.  And, in the end, it paid off...



Nelson took 6th place after getting a bit distracted, with 5 judges and countless parents staring back at him, after hearing the word "blissful."  I told him all along that he was technically the underdog of all underdogs and that getting through one round would be a huge accomplishment.  He made it through four rounds of words with "blissful" being a second grade word.  Outstanding!



Henry rocked it!  He made it to the very end spelling first, second and third grade words.  Then to actually win he had to spell one additional word, which for him was a fourth grade word..."dreadful."  We had gone over this word in the car that morning on our way to school and he missed it...  And he nailed it with such confidence.  Not even pausing to think about it.





He was then able to move on to the next round.  He had to face the top two first, second and third graders in the final round.  It was very tough competition.  Again he was nailing fourth grade words left and right.. Words we had gone over.  Then they began to mix it up.  Random words he had never seen.  The other contestants started dropping like flies.  All of them down.  Henry was the only one remaining and his word was "thermos."  I thought we were gonners with the rest of them...

"D...E...R..."

"Oh, crap!  This is it,"  I told myself...

He paused and looked at the judge.  She said, "Would you like me to repeat the word?"

"Yes." 

She did, with very clear enunciation.

And, he started over...

"T...H...E...R...M........................O........S.  Thermos."

I couldn't believe it... All of them down and he nailed it again!!!

Then the judge said, "That is correct.  Now you need to spell one more word to win the competition.... The word is.........disappearing."

A look of despair fell across his face... He found me in the back of the room.  I tapped my temple and mouthed, "Just think about it."  He nodded.

And began... "D....I....S....................U.........." Then he stopped.  After an uncomfortable amount of time passed the judge asked him if he was finished.  He put his head down and nodded and returned to his seat.  Everyone that had gone out was now back in it....  He was unable to recover.  The pressure and the words were too much.  He did not spell another word correctly.  

He was pretty bummed out.  I gave him a big hug and told him how proud I was.  His teacher was waiting outside the library when we came out, anxious to hear how he did.  She too told him how great he did.

In the end we didn't get the school championship title.  But we do have two fantastic spellers that got the dinner of their choice, a burger for one and sushi for the other, and a lot of high-fives in the halls.