Pita Pizza

My children don't know how to read or spell or write.   But they do know lots of words.   Commonly, they know more words than you think they do.   I remember the day my son told me there was a zeppelin in the sky.   He was two-years-old.   I don't know where he hard that word, although I wouldn't have been surprised if it was Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. 

Children learn words by hearing them in context.  I had picked my children up after their parade at International Peace Day at school.   I had forgotten to bring them something to eat as we drove to lunch.   A few bites of something on the way to lunch makes for a much happier child at the lunch table before the food arrives.

I grabbed a handful of pita pocket slices in a paper towel from the room I was substituting in and went out to collect my children.   We got in the car and I started telling them how we were meeting dad for lunch and he would have pizza for us when we arrived at the restaurant. 

It took me a few minutes to realize they were confused by the word, 'pita' and the word, 'pizza' in context.   They were holding and eating pita, and we were going to have pizza.  When I realized what was happening I did that over-pronuncation thing we do when someone doesn't understand you, saying, "you're eating PEE-TUH and we're going to have PEET-ZUH with dad."   Oh, they said. 

The Big Boy Update:  Yesterday morning my son came downstairs with the cordless phone from the bonus room.   He handed it to me saying, "it's flashing".   I told him that meant there was a message and would he like to hear it?   He listened to the sales call and then we deleted it.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My son makes up names for things that either don't have a specific name or that he just wants to name.   His bath cars apparently got names because I heard him telling his sister all which one was which one night.   The next day she was looking in the tub toys drawer, pulling out the toys when she looked to me and said, "where are packer and pooker?"  

Fitness Update:  Our trainer got to talking today.   I think he really wanted to talk because it went on for a bit and I was really wanting to exercise.   I said at one point, "maybe we should do a pushup or something?"  We talked for a few more minutes (it was a good conversation about nice things) and then he tried to kill us for the last five minutes.