Ice Carrots

She calls icicles ice carrots.
She calls grilled cheese girl cheese.
She calls a whirlpool a swirlpool.

In our furious rush to teach her how things are supposed to be and what things are supposed to be called, we'll rid her of these malapropisms.

Her sisters had to give up orps and craps; why should she be allowed to hold on to hers?

----

She's got day-of-the-week socks that she tries to wear on the right day.

She already knows to think thank God its Friday.

Not because of the socks but because it's the weekend. 

 She's learning to pause at punctuation when she reads.

And to use it when she writes.

She just figured out that she can probably count as high as 1000 if she could be bothered.


She can read a note on a Saturday morning that says "Daddy's gone for a run. Let Mommy sleep. I put paper out for you to draw a picture" and she will proudly follow those instructions because she can.

She pauses the TV when she has to go to the bathroom.

And presses play when she's back.

She waits until the Skip Ad timer counts down on YouTube then gleefully skips the ad.


She knows all the words to Somebody That I Used To Know.

Though she likes Walk off the Earth's version better than Gotye's.

She knows that money is needed to buy things.She has yet to understand that you can't buy everything you want.


She's learning to tell time on a clock with hands.

----

I love every part of her journey. Even the destination.

I love lying on the floor with her at night, having cut out some really badly drawn ponies - mine is Turquoise Prisoner, hers is Emily Sparkle - and playing a game where we see which one can swim fastest, skate the best, or fart the loudest. I love it for 15 minutes at a time, whereas she could do it for hours and still want more.

Play is her work, as someone smart said; it's work for me too, but I try.

She read Get Out of Bed! to me last night. Cover-to-cover.

The reading will accelerate and enrich her vocabulary and her spelling, so that she learns to fall in line and say icicle, grilled cheese, and whirlpool (because those are the words you're supposed to use even though her versions are way better).

It will also make her need me less.

The older two still enjoy arts and crafts (even when they're not with their little sister) but we took orps and craps away from them and that's a shame.

And they haven't let me read to them in years.

I'm going to try to keep the ice carrots I think.