Words, words, words.

If you know Liam, you know that he is all about the words . He talks nonstop, he reads more books in a week than most people do in a year, and he can talk about nearly any subject. Logorrhea.

So when his teacher announced there would be a class spell-off in anticipation of the school spelling bee, Liam's response was strange. 'I don't think I want to do it, Mom,' he said. Languorous.

'You need to do the class spell-off,' I replied, 'and if that is the end of it, that's fine.' Acquiescence.

 He wasn't super eager for the school spelling bee when he was one of the top five from his class, but he wasn't as resistant as he was at first. Liam confidently spelled his words until there were just two kids left. They went round after round. Finally he won. Perseverance.

Liam brought me the study words and the news that the winner of the town bee would go on to the regional bee, and so on . Sanguinity.

He found the words for the town bee difficult to learn. We took a long road trip for the Thanksgiving holiday to the Gulf of Mexico, and we studied a bit in the car. Liam didn't like spelling words wrong. He also didn't like memorizing the study words alone so that he didn't misspell words. Chagrin.

At the town bee, kids misspelled words and were out, one after another. Soon it was down to the final two spellers--the same two as at the school bee. They went round after round again, ending with the same result as before. Liam was elated. The two kids were interviewed and their photograph appeared in the local newspaper. Panegyric.

Suddenly, there was a new interest in studying. Liam had a plan, and he was confident that he would win the regional bee in El Paso, Texas. I thought otherwise. I told everyone that he was going to go head to head with the 'professional spellers' at that level, and Liam didn't have a chance . Tenebrous.

In El Paso, Liam spelled word after word confidently and clearly. The other kids had memorized the list more than he had, but he pulled some amazing spelling out of nowhere. Elide. I know that he hadn't practiced that one. I flinched time after time when I heard the pronouncer give Liam his word, only to open my eyes in amazement when Liam finished spelling correctly. Then the pronouncer went 'off-list.' This is when things got interesting: The kids who had memorized the word list were dropping like flies. They had successfully spelled words like gnathonic, braggadocio, weissnichtwo, schadenfreude, and galjoen correctly. Now they were misspelling words like ballast, irate, and other, everyday words. Serendipity.

And to wrap things up, here we are, almost three months and thousands of study words later: departure day. I have learned a lot about Liam, language, and the purpose of this sort of competition. I was not a huge fan of spelling bees because I thought all the kids became word list automatons. Turns out I was wrong. Liam and I have had amazing conversations about how words are formed over time and via different languages, about word meanings, and about the life skills Liam is practicing when he studies every single day and when he stands alone on stage, presented with a word he doesn't know how to spell. He thrives with that sort of pressure to figure things out. I am grateful to Liam for allowing me to be his coach through this process. I have learned a lot.

But I still have one question: Are oopuhue hoomalimali?