Embarrassed or Extraordinary?

Today was the Spelling Bee, and Brishen came so close--to having to spell words from now until the new year, that is.  The top six students-5 girls and 1 Brishen--were all obviously very prepared.  They went several rounds.  Eventually, 4 of the girls missed a word, leaving Brishen and one girl. 

Only it wasn't just any other girl.  This girl got to go to the National Spelling Bee last year.  My guess is that she practices for the Bee year round in all sorts of ways and places. 

We had basically just studied the list they emailed us.  That was great preparation.  Brishen knew all those words.  Unfortunately, someone has to eventually win, and if you have two kids who each know every single word on the list, and families who eventually want to go home from the Spelling Bee, there comes a point when it is time to leave the words of the trusty list and go "off list." 

When the judge told us they were going off list, I thought Brishen might be in trouble.  He is great at memorizing.  He has a huge vocabulary and can spell a lot of words due to all the reading he does.  But this other girl?  She studies for Nationals.  She likely gets out her dictionary on a regular basis just to see words she hasn't seen before.  I've watched the movies of the Spelling Bee.  I've seen those kids.  I knew it was only a matter of time.

I just didn't realize how much time.  All in all, the top two went 25 rounds.  25 rounds!  18 of those rounds were off list.  I am pretty proud of my son, but he did finally fall into his parents' footsteps.  The title to this post?  Those are the two words that finally knocked Jon and I out of our respective Spelling Bees way back when.  They aren't tough words, and we knew how to spell them.  There just comes a point when someone will finally make a mistake.  That happened to Brishen on the word "allergy."  Yep, "allergy."  He certainly knows how to spell it.  It was just his time to zone out.  He ended it with an "ie" instead of the "y". 

The funny thing is that I asked him about the word "allergy" when we were driving home.  He said, "Allergy?  I missed allergy?"  I told him that he put an "ie" at the end.  He had no recollection of that or any idea why he would have missed it.  I'm guessing he'll forever hate that word as much as I hate "extrAordinary" with an A in the middle.