William had the opportunity to try something new in January, something I remember well from my own childhood: taking part in the school-wide spelling bee. The linked album contains pictures from the occasion, as well as a video consisting of compiled clips of his part in the competition.

I don’t remember Julia and Joe participating in anything like this, so the format was new to me. They recruited the top two spellers from each of the fourth and fifth grade classrooms and put them together in one big contest. As a result, the field was large, numbering more than twenty students in total. The competition also differed from the spelling bees of my youth in that the student following an eliminated participant was not required to spell the word that knocked the previous kid out. This prevents a single difficult word from knocking out the bulk of the field, but also slightly increases the role of luck in the contest: a kid who draws an extremely challenging word can’t cling to the hope that they might be saved if it wipes out everyone else.

William is generally a fairly confident and unflappable guy, so it’s unusual to see him looking nervous. In this instance, however, he looked downright scared. It’s possible that I’m reading more into his facial expressions than he actually felt, but I thought he looked genuinely spooked as he sat on stage waiting for the competition to begin.

He needn’t have worried, however, as he did very well considering that he was up against older kids as well as his own classmates. We spent some time preparing in the weeks leading up to the event—the printed list of spelling words in multiple columns brought back some powerful, visceral memories for me—and he cruised through the first eleven rounds of the contest. He was finally tripped up in the twelfth round on the word “antechamber”, with fewer than ten competitors remaining alive.

He remained on the stage for the rest of the round, after which he was ushered out of the auditorium. We left through the rear entrance and met him outside. He was downcast and visibly upset, and our attempts to console him fell on deaf ears. His mood only brightened when a fifth grader named Paxton came over to share his own story of being eliminated and cheer him up. It was at once heartwarming to see and a sobering reminder that William is fast approaching an age at which the having the approval of his friends and peers will feel more important to him than feedback from Julie and me.

For posterity, here were William’s words:

1. again
2. endless
3. expressway
4. disdain
5. ambush
6. wafting
7. replica
8. bunions
9. nondescript
10. spawned
11. boba
12. antechamber

Gallery: Fourth Grade Spelling Bee