See, when I was a kid, I was really good at spelling. And I won the school spelling bee. So I went on to the city spelling bee (I feel I must pause here to note that these were the Catholic school bees, so a different bracket entirely from the public schools, and the words weren't nearly as hard by the end), and I won that too. And then I won the state spelling bee.
This was when things got ugly. Because I then lost one beautiful summer to spelling. My mother insisted that I study, I think for about two hours a day (although it's a bit of a dark haze), and what I mostly remember is sitting with her at the dining room table drilling words while outside the window, I watched my little sisters frolicking in the green grass.
In the end, I went to nationals (Catholic), and I got third place, and I cried when I got knocked out, but my parents were supportive and I was reasonably proud of myself afterwards.
So I told Kavi all this, and I asked her if she wanted to study for the spelling bee. And she asked if all the studying was worth it. And I said well, maybe. And Kavi cheerfully said that we'd done flash cards once before, and they were really fun, and that she thought winning would be super-fun, so she definitely wanted to study.
I bowed my head and conceded defeat. If she wants to study, so be it. I'm seeing a lot of flash cards in my future.