Do the mankebrs

I know it’s probably not that interesting to anyone but her relatives, but I have to record for posterity Sarah’s first writing she did without adult help. This was on a worksheet she’d done in kindergarten around New Year’s that posed some questions about recent highlights in the students’ lives. Her favorite lunch? “bnana, graaps, apple, syreeol, wodr.” (The last two are “cereal” and “water,” by the way.) The she was asked about some memories of the past year.

• One thing I remember about my family: “we tak a woc thro the parc.”
• One thing I remember about my friends: “we plad kech the bad gei.”
• One thing I learned to do: “I learned hao to do the mankebrs.”
• One thing I read: “Mes pets.”

(Translations: “We took a walk through the park, We played catch the bad guy, I learned how to do the monkey bars, Mess Pets.”)

In keeping with the FCC mandate on equal time, I’ll relate a story of a few months ago from Becky’s preschool that her teacher related to me at the end of the day. It seems Becky wanted to play with another kid on the playground, but this kid wasn’t interested and said so pretty plainly, with words to the effect that “you have to leave me alone or I’ll never talk to you again.” Now, some kids would burst into tears or at least retreat with tail between legs, but not Becky. Her response? “Aye-aye, captain!” I would love to be able to report that she came up with this riposte entirely by herself, but actually she was quoting the opening jingle to Spongebob Squarepants, our favorite show.