anecdotes and word games

On the car ride home today, from Sebastian: "Probably we'd die if we went in a space ship all the way to the stars." Me: "Why would we die?" Seb: "Cause it's too far."

I sneeze, covering my mouth with my hand. Sebastian: "Mommy, that's not right. You have to go like this (demonstrating), using your elbow." Me: "Oh, you're right. Sorry, Sebastian." Seb: "Do it right next time."

Sebastian in his play kitchen, preparing to feed Liesl a dinner: "You have to eat all your dinner, and all your vegetables, before you can have dessert. If you don't finish all your dinner, you get no treats."

At dinner last week. Sebastian: "Boys have penises and bums. Girls just have v'ginas." Me: "Girls have bums too."

Passing by the cluster of three churches on the corner. Sebastian: "What's a church?" Me: "A place where people who believe in the same things, like the same god, meet every week." Seb: "What do they do there?" Me: "They talk, they listen to a minister or priest, who is like a teacher, and they sing songs." Seb: "That doesn't sound very interesting."

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We've also been playing some new games. He's very much into spelling and letters at the moment, and will frequently ask us "What's the first letter or number in the word 'x'? What comes next?" (He always includes the category of numbers, and has seemingly never noticed that words don't contain numbers. We haven't corrected him.) With help, he can sound out some words, but the English language is tricksy. The fact that C makes different sounds, overlapping with other letters; the silent E's littering the ends of words; the challenges of CH, TH, SH... It's a minefield. But I love that he's interested in spelling and in reading, and that he's trying to figure it out.

Just yesterday he looked at the letters FROG, sounded out the letters, and correctly identified the word. We were very proud. He knows how to spell some words, like Stop, Bus, and Car, but that's through memorization and not reading.

We've also been playing a variant of Twenty Questions - one of us hides a card with a picture on it, and the others have to guess what the picture is. (The cards come from our Boggle Jr. game, so are of common objects and animals.) It lets us introduce the concept of categories, and how to narrow down a search - so we start with asking if the thing is an animal, or an object, or a person. Then we can ask if it's a vehicle, or a toy, if it's man-made or natural, etc. He's still struggling to grasp the idea, but he's definitely improving.

Lastly, and most sweetly, Steve and Sebastian play the "I love you" game. We have a book - Guess How Much I Love You - in which a bunny and his daddy take turns saying how far, how high, how big they love each other. My boys make it a game that they play - "I love you as high as our house." "I love you as high as the Empire State Building." "I love you as high as the moon." "I love you as high as the stars." "Wow. Hmm. I love you as far as the river." "I love you as far as New York City." "I love you as far as Vermont.". Etc etc. It's very sweet.