Jacob and the Bee

Last Monday marked Jacob's first participation in an organised spelling bee. As the picture demonstrates, the competition wasn't large, but it was fierce. And largely female.
I believe that he was spelling friend.
The fiercest competitor, Sarah-Grace: daughter of Colin at Theology of Dad. She's sweet, quite pretty and mild-mannered; but, we had her family over shortly after Christmas and I heard her tell Jacob that she was going to beat his pants off. He actually cowered.
Once balloon was introduced into the competition kids went down like dominoes until the only two left in play were Jacob and Sarah-Grace. At that point, unbeknownst to the larger school community, the competition stepped up a notch and became a battle of the blogs.
A funny aside: both of Sarah-Grace's parents are from the Maritimes and I am from Halifax. And here are our children at a spelling bee in Barry's Bay, Ontario.
Joseph can't believe the coincidence either. (Blogger isn't letting me erase pictures.)
These two kids have no idea how tense their parents are feeling. Sarah's dad was so sick with nerves that he failed to show up.
And then Jacob got the word genuine. Except the adjudicator pronounced it phonetically so that it rhymed with feline. It was then that I knew the end was near since he had only ever heard genuine pronounced genu-in. He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets, closed his eyes and asked in a measured tone for the definition. He should have asked for an alternate pronunciation.
But he didn't, and he began to spell: "j, e..."
And the judge nodded a negative, and he bowed his head and proceeded to the back row. (See above picture.)
And then up came Sarah-Grace, and I said a short prayer that she would triumph. (Aren't you proud of my magnanimity?)
And she did, almost.
Her father tells me that rather than spell difficulty she attempted to demonstrate it: d-i-f-f-a-c-u-l-t-y.
And, I thought, "I can't believe it. I think that she spelled it incorrectly on purpose."
And so Jacob was brought back up for a second round. And they went at it again until Sarah-Grace encountered opposite and breezed through it so quickly that she left out a vowel. And she bowed her head and sat down.
And Jacob won the tournament.
But, truthfully, I think they both won because he couldn't have done it without her.
Thank you, Sarah-Grace. You are an icon of grace.
Here he is opening his winnings.
And here's his sister running out of the classroom for a photo. I told her later that I was sure she could also win a spelling bee. She replied nonchalantly, "Thanks, I know I can."