Multi School Spelling Bee

Tonight was the Multi-School Spelling Bee. Five schools participated, each one sending the top 2 spellers from each grade to compete against each other. The kids had to check in 30 min. early and since we knew that would be torture for everyone I went with Zach. We knew that they would have to go through the 1st and 2nd grades before it was Zach's turn so our plan was for me to save seats and Tim to come with everyone else about 20 minutes late. The gym started filling up and I started getting funny looks from people for all of the saved seats (Grandma Cluff was in town and coming too) so I called Tim and told him he better come immediately. It was a good thing too, because one of the 1st grade winners from our school got sick and wasn't there. The alternate wasn't there either and I was approached and asked if Wyatt (who had come in 4th) was coming. I called Tim and luckily, they were in the parking lot. I grabbed Wyatt and asked him if he wanted to participate. He was immediately nervous and almost started crying at the thought. I tried to convince him for a couple of minutes and finally told the head of the Spelling Bee that he was too nervous. We went to our seats and I thought I would give it one more shot. I said something about how they would be using the same lists of words as the school spelling bee and then, suddenly, Wyatt was good to go. He had somehow thought that they would be giving much harder words at this Spelling Bee. So, suddenly, we had two kids competing. Wyatt even wore the right color of shirt for our school! Unfortunately, his time up on the stage was quite short lived. He misheard the word "head" and thought they said "hid". As the mom I wanted to talk to the judges because it was obvious that he said the wrong word when he was spelling. I refrained. I did speak with his teacher (I loved that his teacher was there to support the kids!) afterward and she had thought the word was "hid" also. She had been confused when they told him he was incorrect. It was unfortunate but he handled it really well and we were proud that he had overcome his fear and participated. They did find him a t-shirt after it was over. We had enough time for a bathroom break and to let the girls wander the halls before it was Zach's turn.

Can I just say that I was so impressed with Zach's composure. For a kid who is shy and quiet, he just exuded confidence up there. He didn't rush the words, he spoke directly into the microphone, and he rocked that Spelling Bee!! Before we knew it, there were only two kids left on the stage. They had to move up to the 6th grade words because these two were nailing everything that was given to them. Things finally got tough and for good reason....we hadn't even looked at the 6th grade level words. Zach was given the word "dahlia" and there was silence on the stage. Then, he leaned into the microphone with a confused look on his face and said "...what????...". A low chuckle rippled through the gym and the judge said, quite professionally, "I can repeat the sentence or give a definition". He asked for both and then, with a little bit of a shrug spelled "D-O-W-L-Y-A". Obviously, incorrect. But, the other speller missed his word too so they were back up. Zach spelled 'government' correctly and the other boy misspelled 'stethoscope'. And it was done. ZACH WON!! His teacher, Ms. Pier was there to support him and was thrilled with his victory. We headed home and I don't think anyone besides Darcy was asleep before 10pm.