A Georgia Girl in Germany

I had to share some of Benjamin’s recent classwork here. For Valentine’s Day, they had to draw a picture of someone they loved and write his/her name. The handout was designed for the kids to write mommy/daddy after the word “my” ... but Benjamin decided to write the name of one of his classmates. Fortunately, Marissa is a sweet little girl (yes, with strawberry blonde hair, like his drawing of her) whose mother volunteers regularly in the classroom. When I read aloud what his paper said “I will always love MY Marissa,” he grinned. I pretended to be sad that he didn’t choose me, and he grinned even more … then gave me a huge hug and kiss. I suppose that means he’ll always love me, regardless of what he wrote on the handout.

The note below is a reminder he wrote about a parade (“pr-eeb”) they had today to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday and “Reading is COOL” week. They were supposed to wear clothes that showed how “cool” they are with reading, and he told me that he was supposed to wear pajamas (which wasn’t on the note his teacher sent home). He has two new (size 6!) shirts that I tried convincing him were “cool” (one with a polar bear, and the other with a snowboarder), but he was adamant that he wanted to wear pajamas. It’s turned cold and rainy again, so I couldn’t, in good conscious, send him to school wearing only pajamas (he doesn’t have the thick, warm ones) -- so we compromised, and he wore his pajama shirt over an undershirt with jeans. Apparently, Marissa commented that he wasn’t wearing pajamas, and he had to correct her that he WAS wearing a pajama shirt.

OK, since I’m talking about Benjamin, here are a few more recent “Benjamin-isms.” Since Monday was Dr Seuss’ 105th birthday, part of his homework this week was to count to 105. No problem -- he’s counted to 100 before, and understands how to continue. He’s also learned “skip-counting” in school -- counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. Weeeellllll, Zachary and MacKenzie have also taught him skip-counting to 100. When I asked him if he could count to 105, he promptly began counting (in the sing-songy voice that they all use up to 100), “One, two, skip-a-few, ninety-nine, a hundred … a hundred-one, a hundred-two, a hundred-three, a hundred-four, a hundred-five.” I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t make him count correctly and just signed off on his homework. He definitely gets an A+ for creativity in my book!

We had Italian sausage for supper the other night, with potatoes and peppers. Benjamin doesn’t care for the veggies, so only ate the sausage and bun. Zachary and MacKenzie were trying to convince him that the potatoes tasted like french fries (they were really good this time), but to no avail. He commented that the only food that he likes that tastes like french fries is “macaroni and cheese that tastes like french fries.” I had to think about that one a moment, then realized he was talking about scalloped potatoes -- “cheesy potatoes!” Yup, I can see how that can taste like french fries since it’s made from potatoes as well. What a kid!

Labels: Benjamin, Kid Quotes