I work as an aide in a second grade classroom where the teacher once asked for examples of words with the “short i” sound and one of the kids raised his hand and said, “Tit”. I always felt he deserved partial credit.
So it shouldn’t have been any surprise when I was grading papers yesterday and more than a few of them took the word “start” and rhymed it with “fart”. For that, they each earned a big, red happy face.
Some days, I really love my job.
A week or so ago I was surfing around on-line when I saw someone comment that they are “not so totally” anything. I had to sit back and reread this obvious slam in my direction. I am so totally sure that he so totally said that!
Okay, I admit I lean toward the valley-girl, which should be obvious because I live in Ohio. What? We have valleys!
I can understand if it bothers some people to hear the English language butchered, but nothing can be worse than my pet peeve.
A-whole-nother.
At least “so” and “totally” are words. “Nother” is not. Not unless you also have summer-teeth. You know, some ‘r’ here and some ‘r’ there. It is also optional language if you have a bathtub in your front yard.
My best friend cringes when she hears someone pronounce crayons as “crans” and we’ve actually had discussions about whether you should say “COO-pons” or “CUE-pons”. And, every time I hear my mom refer to Home “DEEP-oh” as Home “DEP-oh” I die a little inside.
I have been known to make notoriously ugly birthday cakes. They are made with love and they usually taste okay, but that’s as far as I can stretch it.
There was the time I made my husband, what has been dubbed, the diarrhea cake. Not because of the texture, but rather the icing I so lovingly concocted with food coloring. Did you know that blue and green make brown?
And, then there’s this. Quite possibly the most hideous cake ever. What you can’t see is my son’s name, which I removed with Microsoft Paint (widely known as Photoshop for poor people). All you need to know is that the “M” in his name looked remarkably like an “N”.
What you can see? The crooked “2” in every corner, the thick letters in “Happy”, which ends in a whacked out “y”. Oh, and even at two…he knew he was in for years of this, which would explain his reaction.
But yesterday, I was so proud of myself. My father-in-law came to visit and I made a cake from scratch! From scratch, I said! Even the icing was homemade. My letters were well-scripted and I added some red sprinkles to match. This is a masterpiece in my house.
Each day in the second grade class in which I work, the teacher goes around the room and asks the students if there is anything they are concerned about. The hands quickly shoot up and they begin talking about their problems.
Here is an example of some of the things they’ve mentioned lately:
“My arm is scratched, because I was playing basketball with my sister and ran into a brick wall.”
“My puppy is sick.”
“We’re moving to a new house.”
“I had a hard time waking up this morning.”
“My brother has a swim-meet this weekend and I hope he does well.”
Then the teacher calls on me and here are some of the things I have said (okay, wanted to say…I don’t want to traumatize anyone) in the last couple of weeks:
“Out of my sister’s four best friends, three of them have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The third one just got the news.”
“My mom is being sued for money which is rightfully hers and was left for her in the will of a man with sound mind, who she nursed through his sickness and death for 12 years. Who’s suing? The daughter who never came to visit him.”
“I am in a continuing battle with health insurance and our county over medications and therapy that my son needs, but no one seems to want to pay for.”
“My husband is working 16 hour days to support us and we never see him anymore.”
“I haven’t slept well in over 10 years.”
And what I’ve learned from this little exercise in reflection and sharing, is that I really wish I was seven again.
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