Ally has provided some serious comedic relief lately. In the past two days she's managed to bring me to tears (with laughter), and managed to make Paige cry (while I laughed).
Incident #1
We have lots of rules here at the H household. Who gets to open Charlene's door (we divide the honor into morning and afternoon), who gets to get in the shower/out of the shower first, etc. The newest rule is who gets to pick the car entertainment. Since we spend an hour in the car each day, this is quite a big deal. The options are: listening to a book on tape, listening to the radio, or listening to a CD. After much bickering about whose turn it was, I decided that Paige would be in charge of the morning car entertainment and Ally could be in charge of the afternoons. This has been working quite well since being implemented last week.
On Tuesday afternoon, we piled in the car and headed to swimming lessons. Knowing that it was her turn to choose, Ally said "hmmm.....what I wan wisten to....Maybe....Hmmm what I wan wisten to.....hmmm" (hmm, what do I want to listen to????.......) By this time, Paige is getting impatient and says to Ally "Ally, just spit it out already!"
Ally did just as she was told. She spit at Paige.
I of course BURST out laughing. I mean really it was funny. Paige of course can't figure out why I'm laughing and starts to cry saying "It's not funny! Spitting isn't nice. It just means to say it FASTER!". Picture this: Paige is crying and I'm laughing, which only encourages Ally to continue spitting while saying 'pit it out! pit it out!" (spit it out, spit it out!).
Once I was able to compose myself, Ally proceeded to actually choose her CD, while I gave Paige a quick lesson on idioms and figurative vs. literal speech.
Incident #2
On Wednesday night we were playing a family game of phonic bingo. The object of the game is to match the letter tiles to the pictures. Each player chooses a tile, if the letter on the tile is the initial sound of one of the pictures, then you get to place it on your card. Paige knows all her letter/sounds, so this is a perfect game for her. Naturally this game is a little harder for Ally since she's only 2. Ally knows the letters in her name and 'W' (who knows why), so we just point to where she needs to put them and show her the 'match'.
We played a few rounds, and Ally ended up picking a 'w' and yelled: "I know dat...dat a double-you" (I know that one! It's a w). I explain to Ally that W says /wuh/ and tell her to look at her card and see if she can find something that starts with /wuh/.../wuh/. I figured after a quick glance, I'd tell her that she didn't have anything that started with a W and that she needed to put it back in the pile.
After a quick second Ally screams out "I dot a match, I dot a wion" and proceeded to put the W on a picture of a lion. Naturally, Paige couldn't let this go, she proceeded to lay into Ally about how she was wrong, and that Lion started with an /L/ NOT a /W/.
I guess in addition to working on idioms with Paige, I'll need to work on Ally's W for L substitution.
Totally unrelated observation. So...... I finally finished reading The Time Traveler's Wifea few days ago. I don't know what you all were thinking, but I thought it totally sucked (sorry Mom, I know you hate that word, but there really isn't a better adjective). Kaleena, Michelle, and Alison talked it up and I could barely get through it. Normally I read pretty fast, but it took me over a week to read it. I kept thinking it would get better. I kept feeling like I was missing something. Those of you that liked it must be higher-up on the literary totem pole or somethin'. I started reading Plain Truth last night and am loving it (and am halfway finished).
