How Their Progress Entertains Me

Can I just say that I love some of the conversation snippets the boys have? They really crack me up and provide me with the entertainment and a reason to get me laughing each day (although they usually aren’t trying to be funny).

Example 1 – Middle Boy’s Reading Progress
Middle Boy has really come a long way in his reading skills this semester. He started the semester off not knowing much or anything about sounding out words, and now he’s reading easy Dr. Seuss books and starting to learn how to read other books (those silent E’s and other *special* vowel sounds are tricky).

At his parent conference his teacher was so impressed at how well he blends his sounds together. My fiancé and I were pretty proud of this since we’ve been teaching him all along and encouraging him to read at home. I also can’t begin to tell you how many times a week I heard the phonics alphabet cd or heard about his Alpha Friends (the characters associated with letters that they learn/review each week).

Anyway, last night my fiancé and Middle Boy were sitting down reading a book. And Middle Boy was trying to blend together the sounds for the word “kisses.” My fiancé was having him sound out the different sounds/phrases that Middle Boy could recognize – “Kiss” and “Es”

FH: Put it together. What does it say?
MB: Kiss. Eh-sss. *loudly* Kiss-Ass!

I was sitting at my desk working when I heard this. Now usually when I’m trying not to laugh I hide my mouth in my shirt collar. Well, when I attempted to do just this I about cursed at myself for wearing a split V-neck that day. I ended up covering my mouth with my hand and leaning a little further onto my desk while I tried to control my giggles. It was so precious and classic.

Example 2 – Younger Boy Learning to Use His Words
Now, Younger Boy has this habit of screaming and yelling instead of using his words when he doesn’t like something his brothers are doing to him. In fact, all of them had this habit when I first moved in. Middle Boy and Older Boy have embraced my method of “Using your words” quite well. Younger Boy on the other hand is a bit more of a project. He still hasn’t quite grasped it yet. I’ve worked and volunteered at Child Development Centers for quite a while during college and high school. The method exercised there is:

Tell them to stop whatever it is they're doing. And then tell them why/what you want them to stop and how it makes you feel when they do it.

One I often use with Younger Boy: “Please stop yelling at me. It hurts my feelings because I don’t like it when you yell at me like that.”

It’s all nature to me now and I don’t usually stop to think about it when I use the method. And sorta off-topic, the method sounds pretty funny when used on some of my friends at the Fraternity House back in college. Great example: “Please don’t call me a whore. I do not get paid to have sex, nor do I charge others to have sex with me. So I’d appreciate it if you stopped calling me that.” Oh yeah, it came out just like that, without a thought. And it received a good chuckle, BUT it worked 92 percent of the time.

Back on topic, I’ve been working with Younger Boy to use my method. So earlier this week I caught this conversation between Younger Boy and Middle Boy who were playing in their room:

Story set up: Middle Boy is trying to shove his Transformer toy into Younger Boys Thomas and Friends train station (which Younger Boy is playing with) and Younger Boy is trying to push the toy out with his hands. They both try using my method against each other.

MB: Younger Boy! STOP! DON’T DO THAT!
YB: STOP! I'm MAD AT YOU!
MB: I'm sad *sniffs*
YB: Yes! You are!

OK, maybe I’m just mean and evil but that cracked me up. It was nice to hear that they were trying to use their words … albeit a little backwards and out of order … but still! And, oh, how I wish I could insert voice inflections because Younger Boy’s “Yes! You are!” sounded so direct and intended. Luckily for me they were in their room and I could silently giggle into my shirt collar in the living room at my desk.

Oh yes, How I Love the random snippets of conversation I hear from the boys.