A 12-year-old Chicago area boy won the Chicago Tribune Chicagoland Spelling Bee Suburban Final, with the word "hyperborean." You know what was amazing about it to me? He is Chinese, and English is not his parent's first language! He, therefore, had to enlist his brother's help in practicing.

Some of the other words he spelled were "amaurosis," "oxytocia," "daven," "allargando," and "naprapathy." The runner-up lost with the word "asthmogenic." See, had I been her mom, she never would have gotten that word wrong.

I was in a spelling bee once and missed the most ridiculously simple word that it is embarrassing: "cinnamon"