Reading Comprehension

Matt is reading The Hobbit to BC at night. I am amazed at what she understands. He is currently reading to her about the encounter between Smaug and Bilbo after Smaug has chased Bilbo and the dwarves out of his lair when they've stolen his treasure.

At one point, she says to him, "Dragons sleep in tunnels." We agreed. "And take naps in tunnels."

Hard to argue with that.

Then he starts to read about how Bilbo tries to creep past Smaug but Smaug smells him and wakes up.

"Is the dragon awake?"
"Yes, he is. He's waking up."
"Dragons don't talk, do they?"
Foolishly, we told her they do not. Then Smaug talked.
"Dragons DO talk!"
"You're right. They do."
"Is Smaug chasing him? Is he going to take him away?"
"He is. But whom is he chasing?"
"Bilbo, I fink."
"That's right. Bilbo."
"Smaug is going to take him away from the dawarves." (That is a purposeful misspelling. She says "dawarves." It's the cutest thing ever.)

[further reading]

"Has he taken him away yet?"
"No, not yet, honey. Keep listening."

[more reading]

"Is the dragon talking?"
"Yes. He is."
"He's talking to Bilbo?"

"And then there are all the others?"
"All the other what, honey?"
"The other dawarves!"
"That's right, sweetie. And where are the dwarves?"
"They're somewhere that the dragon can't find them and take them away."

I'd say she's doing okay with her reading comprehension!

Sleeping. Finally!

BC slept NINE HOURS last night!! I could get used to this! :)

Overheard from BC to her little brother:

"We're going to have a good day today! Now, no crying, no fussing, no whining . . . "

Massive meltdown upon the consequences of disobedience, which then led to a forced march to her room and the revocation of a "treat", promised upon the contingency of pleasantness and obedience. After shrieking "MOM!! MOM!!" through her keyhole she then began wailing, "I need a drink!" I assume she meant juice. I laughed heartily and responded, "YOU need a drink!?"

I did not go in to her immediately when she quit shrieking. So she resumed, and began yelling, "Where are you? Where did you go? Get yourself in here! NOW! Get me out of here!"

This is not helping her cause.

She's now muttering, a la Rainman, "I need a treat. I need a treat."

Is it horrible that I'm having trouble stifling my laughter?

Catch-up

BC has been prolific in her quotables lately.

The other day, she woke up and announced that she did not need breakfast and was not hungry. She would wait.

Within 15 minutes, she was rolling around on the floor smacking her brother and whining. I asked her what her problem was. "I'm mad because you haven't fed me." Oh, indeed. I'll get right on that.

As I was getting her breakfast, she once again began acting badly and I reminded her that her next stop was her room. She did not amend her behavior. "I've already warned you, sweetie, that you're going to your room if you can't be pleasant." She responded, "Fank you for that warning, Mommy."

Derelict though I am, I did manage to get her breakfast on the table. She polished off two whole pieces of french toast. When I noted that with no small amount of surprise, she said, "OH, I fink that's my problem."

Last night, as she played outside with Daddy, she was quite talkative. Charlie was barking at them from the house and she began channeling me: "Grrr, Charlie! That dog is something else! I'm furious with him!" Daddy then pulled out some bubbles and let her play with them. He asked if she had ever done that before. "No," she said, and then corrected herself: "There was that time with the waitress." We realized she was talking about when I was pregnant with her little brother and we went to Cracker Barrel, where the manager was wandering around with a bubble gun blowing bubbles on the porch. That was this past fall. Meaning nearly 10 months ago. She was 18 months old. That frightens me.

She followed that up with a gleeful shriek when she heard a train. "It's a freight train, Daddy!" He asked if it was Thomas the Tank Engine. "Umm, no. It's too far away. It's in Canton."

This evening we stopped at a little festival at a nearby church and BC was entirely overwhelmed by the whole thing, partly because she had fallen asleep in the backseat on our way. So we packed her back into the car and took her for ice cream instead, which was much lower key. As we shared our ice cream with her, she announced, "Don't just eat it all, people." We chuckled at her and finished our ice cream (with her help), at which point she announced, "That's all there is, Maffew. That's all there is."

King of Alfred

Matt has been reading G.K. Chesterton's poem "The Ballad of the White Horse" for his book group. It's the story of King Alfred and the Danes, who had horns on their helmets. Or so it's been said. He's shared it with BC on occasion and has read her several of the chapters, but not for a few weeks. It resulted in frustration for little BC because he would stop reading aloud in order to read the notes silently. She finally reached the point of saying, when he would pause, "Oh, is there a note? Are you done with the note?"

She wandered over to his copy of the book while he was at work today and picked it up, announcing that she would read it. She climbed up on the couch and opened the book up and I heard her saying, "And then King of Alfred and Jesus and Mary went [mumble mumble mumble]. And King of Alfred and the horns went in their houses because it's thundering and raining. But they're not scared of that." Then she would pause. And then say, "Oh, there's a note."

Story time...minus the sharing

BC was reading a Richard Scarry book while her brother sprawled on the floor and watched her. She found a blimp and used her new word for such a creature: "Is that a wump?! A wump!"

Her brother then tried to look at the book with her. She was not amused by his interest and I had to tell her to share. I heard her say, "You can look at it but you can't touch it. Because your fingers have fingerprints."

Yes that's right. We're white glove folks around here.