Her Name is Mud
Based on the looks of Clare’s muddy boots, some of you have wondered (well it was only Zoe’s Dad who wondered in a comment, but I know you were all thinking it) what the rest of Clare looked like after her mudbath. I’d tell you, but I never actually got a chance to see her with the muddy clothes on. Realizing that I might be upset, muddy Clare got undressed in the garage and then snuck into the house in her underwear. She runs around the house like that a lot, so that really wasn’t a clue for me. What was a clue was the trail of mud leading from the kitchen door to a corner of the laundry room where Clare had hid her clothes.
Cute age, isn’t it? She’s clever enough to think of hiding the clothes, but doesn’t quite have the capacity to realize she should have hid them better and wiped up the mud. As soon as she figures out she has to cover her all tracks we’ll be in trouble.
Four Letter Words
In first grade, Clare has spelling tests every week. For the first few months, most of the words were pretty simple and mostly three letters. We’re getting into four and five letter words now though and I’m realizing how messed up a language English is.
I have a love-hate relationship with spelling. As I admitted a few weeks ago, I was a great speller in grade school, won a spelling bee, and went on to the state competition where I lost after a few rounds. I hated the experience so much that the following year I purposefully lost at school so I wouldn’t have to go on. That’s probably when my spelling started going dounhill…or is that downhill? By the time I seriously started studying Spanish in college, my ability to spell in English was lost. In Spanish, almost every consonant and vowel makes a single sound. (Except in the Caribbean where some Spanish speakers drop half the letters but speak so fast you can’t even tell they’re doing it.)
Clare and I study her spelling words every week and, when she’s writing something at home, she’s still asking me how to spell most of the words.
“How do you spell ‘dumb,’” she asked one day.
“Great,” I thought to myself. “I have to explain the silent ‘b.’”
I spelled the word and, as expected, she questioned why the ‘b’ was there. Not being much of an orthographist…or is it orthografist…I told her it just was and to accept it.
“Daddy,” she said then, “I know how to spell ‘from.’ F-R-O-M.”
“That’s great,” I said.
“’From’ and ‘dumb’ rhyme, but they’re not spelled the same,” she noticed. “How do you spell ‘gum?’” she asked next.
“This isn’t headed in a good direction,” I thought, but I spelled ‘gum’ for her.
“How do you spell ‘hum?’” came next.
“This one at least follows the same rule, if there is a rule,” I thought. (I’m always thinking, can you tell?) I spelled ‘hum’ for her.
“I know how to spell ‘come,’” she told me. “C-U-M.”
That’s when I stopped thinking. I corrected the spelling and left it at that.
Who’s the sadist who came up with this language. I need some rum…or is it rumb?
He Can Walk for Miles and Miles and…
Dan at All That Comes With It will be walking seventy-eight miles this summer over a period of six days. He isn’t doing it because he’s athletic like that or because he’s a lunatic (but he may be doing it in spite of being a lunatic). Three years ago, friends of Dan lost their three year old son Joseph when he died suddenly in his sleep of streptococcal pneumonia. Dan’s walk is a tribute to Joseph and his family and an effort to raise funds for the Joseph Salmon Trust which “supports parents who have lost a child by providing financial assistance to those who need it most. This may be to help with funeral costs or to allow the self-employed a break from work while they come to terms with their loss.”
Dan says it all much better than I can. Go take a look at his post, plan to tear up, and support the fund if you can.
Have a great weekend, everyone. Give the kids some extra hugs.
