Wednesday, January 09, 2013

I had to try hard not to laugh when she said the bit about living on the same planet

Last night Adriana was singing a song from school that lists the months of the year. She did it first in English, then in Spanish. Then I heard her singing "Shanuarysh, Febshuarysh, Shmarsh, and Shaprilsh." At that point I looked up from my book and asked her why she was singing it so silly. "Mama! It's not polite to call other languages silly!" And then she informed me that those were the words for the months in Hebrew. I guess that's what Hebrew sounds like to her, but I pointed out that what she was doing was akin to throwing an O on the end of every English word and pretending it was Spanish--so also not very polite. 

She considered that for a moment and then said, "But the Jewish calendar has different months completely! Even though we live on the same planet! Are they south of the equator? Is that why?" I told her no, and then she began to wonder if there were even words in Hebrew for the "English" months of the year since the Jewish calendar was so different. I assured her that there will still be words for the Western calendar even in cultures that use lunar calendars for religious observances. At which point she began wondering about what to spend her red envelope money on next month, and we moved on. 

There is so much awesome in how this kid's mind connects different things she learns about. 

2 comments:

The Sister said...

Thanks for the reminder. I better make a trip to Chinatown before they sell out of red envelopes.

Elizabeth said...

Sorry about that. You apparently created a monster. Plus, she's obsessed with money these days. She's figured out she can use it to buy things she wants.