The girls are in school now (*sigh*) and are learning at a
rate reminiscent of Keanu Reeves’ ability to pick up kung fu in The Matrix. Every day, they come home
with new songs, new stories, new skills. It is amazing to watch them and it
gives me a profound appreciation for the teachers who not only can mentally and
emotionally bear a baker’s dozen of three and four year olds day in and day
out, but actually teach them
something every day. It’s astounding.
Of all the learning that has taken place over the last month
or so, the literacy skills have been the most salient. It seems that we no
longer have conversations with our daughters. Instead, our interactions go a
little something like this:
“Mommymommymommymommymommy!”
“Yes!” (trying to squeeze in a response before she takes a
breath and can start the “mommies” again).
“I have a rhyme! Cup and dup! That rhymes!”
“You are right!”
“Also, dough and no! That rhymes! Aaaand…. Airport dairport,
that rhymes!”
“Yes, you are right. Those are rhymes!”
“Also, paper, daper. Water bottle dater dottle. That
rhymes!” (exchanging the first letter of any word and replacing it with a “d”
seems to be the rhyme of choice for the moment.)
“Yes! Great job. What did you do at school today, honey?”
“Mommymommymommymommymommy!”
“Yes!”
“I see an L! And a D!” (indicating something in the room
with writing on it)
“Wow, honey, yes, that is great! What words start with D?”
“Mommymommymommymommymommy!”
“Yes!”
“I see a W!”
Imagine about thirty minutes of this and you have an average
mealtime conversation in our house. While on somewhat of a repetitive loop, the
fact that the girls are developing this linguistic capacity is incredible.
We’ve been bootlessly trying to teach “A” for about a year now and now in the
space of a month, they almost have the whole alphabet. Again, kudos to you,
preschool teachers.
So, tonight started out all fun and games with a
conversation like this one. We finished eating and they asked to read a book.
Delighted with their newly rejuvenated literary affinity, I gladly curled up with
them on the couch to read the classic Brown
Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? What could go wrong?
It started off swimmingly. We were going through the pages,
pointing out letters and making their sounds. We laughed at the blue horse and
the purple cat and stuck out our tongues like the green frog. Then, along came
the black sheep. I should have known this ill-fated animal would bring me
nothing but trouble.
“Sh-sh-sheep. What letter does that start with, Mommy?”
“Well, do you see? Sheep starts with an “s””
(I can see the wheels are turning) “No, Mommy. Sh-sh-sheep.
What letter does it start with?”
“Well, this one is a little funny. It really starts with two
letters. ‘S’ says ‘sssssss’ but when it is 's' and 'h' it says ‘shhhhhh.’”
“No, Mommy. Not two letters. What letter does it start with?”
(Clearly losing her patience with my incompetence.)
“Well, sweetheart, it starts with ‘s’ but with an ‘h’ next
to it, it says ‘sh-sh-sheep.”
That was the last straw. She knows what sound “s” makes and “sh”
wasn’t it. I was clearly holding out on her. She erupted into a tearful rage.
“What letter? WHAT
LETTER?”
I held her and patted her back. She wept the tears that only someone who has been betrayed by their native tongue can.
“I know, honey. English is a funny language.” We sat like
that for some time. She cried over the loss of the simplicity of the alphabet.
I comforted her thinking of all the tricks English would play on her like “laugh”
and “pneumonia”. Unfortunately, life, like the alphabet, is not always black
and white, dear daughter. It is a tough lesson to learn.
I knew I should have stuck with Spanish.
