A-P-T-Y-A-L-I-S-M

The Scribb's National Spelling Bee was broadcast over the weekend. In many families, this event may have passed with little or no notice. However, in this family, it was cause for great excitement. It seems that the Alphas have an unusual fascination with spelling bees. Perhaps it stems from an incident when Alpha Female accidentally said "w" instead of "y" when spelling "boy" in a second grade spelling bee. Or maybe the roots of this fascination took hold when Alpha Male rented a documentary about spelling bees and the Alphas watched that movie during the emotional time when they were in the hospital waiting for my human brother to be born. It seems, regardless or how it was acquired, the Alphas' interest in spelling bees is here to stay. When they saw that the finals were being televised live Friday night, there was no more question about what to watch on TV that night. What could be better than watching middle school kids have their dreams crushed because they spelled a word with an extra "e" on the end?

I usually find that spelling bee words are pretty obscure and have a hard time imagining how any of the words could possibly be used outside of a textbook. But then I heard the definition for the word "aptyalism." Finally, a word I could relate to. Well, I can't really relate to "aptyalism," but I did know immediately that Thing 2 did not have it. Absolutely the contrary in fact, if you look up "aptyalism" in a thesaurus, I bet Thing 2 is listed as an antonym. Aptyalism means a lack of saliva. Thing 2 can soak through several outfits a day with her copious output of saliva. Maybe next year the spelling bee will teach me the word for excessive saliva. Until then, I'll just use the term anti-aptyalism and I will try to use it as often as possible when I am describing Thing 2's incredible saliva talent.