Words

Today I dropped our car off for some body work. Lyra was with me and wanted to know why we were leaving the car behind. I told her they were going to get rid of the dents.

"And the car will have no more dents?" She thought about this for a few moments, then said with honest concern, "But where will the coyotes live?"

We went round and round on this one (because WTF, kid? Coyotes?) before I realized that she was hearing me say "dens." I promised her that we weren't going to make any coyotes homeless by getting our car fixed.

***

Adriana is currently lying in bed trying to fall asleep (at least in theory), but her reading has taken off lately, and while she hasn't yet discovered the time honored tradition of reading under the covers with a flashlight, her brain can't seem to shut off the words running through it. So I keep getting called in to answer "urgent" questions on matters of spelling:

• "What is the I before E rule again?"
• "Did you know some words can rhyme even when they're not spelled the same?"
• "Crossing doesn't start with X, but signs always say 'X-ing.' Why is that?"

I suppose at some point I should  stop going in to answer the questions. But I can't stop my curiosity about what she's going to ask next.

She just called me in to tell me that she would remember the difference between "here" and "hear" by remembering that "you hear with your ear. Get it, Mom? Because the last three letters in that kind of hear actually spell ear?"

At least she's cute.