From the mouths of babes

Consider this a late Stay Healthy Saturday post, laughter being the best thing to keep you young and healthy. Alanya was in prime form this week.

• About a year ago I had to have an abdominal hernia repaired, and at the time we explained it to 5 year old Alanya that mommy's tummy had gotten so big with all my babies that the doctor had to sew up a little hole that opened up. How else to explain it? Well apparently the other day my little angel walked up to a pregnant teacher at school and told her "My mommy's belly was so big and her three babies kicked so much that she had to go get a tummy tuck!"
• This week after taking a practice test with her spelling words, I wrote the correct spelling next to Alanya's where she had gotten one letter wrong in each word. When she realized her mistakes she said "Man! I was so close! I just misspelled them all!"
• And finally, yesterday out of the blue she said "Mom, even though I'm a righty, my lefty comes in handy a lot!"

Spelling test results are in!

Today was Alanya's big test and after days of being tested and drilled by Ben (read about it here) the results are in. She got all ten regular words correct, and although she didn't work on the five optionals, her teacher said everyone had to try them. She got both 'apple' and 'October' correct (Ben taught her to look around the room for clues, like the calendar - smart boy), for a final mark of 102%! It is already up on our refrigerator, although she did ask if we could have it framed!

Spelling Lesson or Life Lesson?

Yesterday Alanya came home with her first official spelling list. If you can remember back to first grade, can you remember how that was an exciting thing? No clue of the hundreds of spelling lists to come, she was finally "big" like her brothers. She proudly used a magnet and put that list up on the refrigerator. no. at. cat.

As she skipped off, Ben came up and looked at it with me. The spelling pro that he is being in second grade, he remembers well how the first grade list is set up - 10 words and 5 optional words for those who want to be more challenged. Ben always did all 5 optional words. He looked at the list. an. ran. man.

He took a deep breath and said, "Mom, what do you think? I think she should have one week to get used to it and not do the optionals, and then next week maybe choose one optional word to try. I think five big words is too much for her." It was true concern in his eyes as he tried to protect his little sister. He's no fool. I readily agreed that we should take some time to ease into the optional words. will. mom. dad.

Later in the evening when Daddy came home she proudly spelled October while reading it straight from her list. She was so proud of herself. Then Ben got the list down and asked if she wanted to 'play school' with her spelling words. He quizzed her, and made word scrambles, and started a word find. Alanya thought they were playing and had no idea. He really does love her.