Little Owl looked up from her homework the other evening, “Did you know Edward the Confessor died with no hair?”
“Really? Wow, that’s interesting…” A long silence as I registered what she’d said. “No hair? That’s a funny fact to be learning.”
I looked over her shoulder at the text. Edward the Confessor died with no heir.
Last week was a week for homework grapples. Finch has a whiteboard to do his sums on. It’s the modern equivalent of a slate and chalk. He slipped it under my nose as I was cooking tea one evening. He’d written 3 and 5 in two boxes next to each other. He bounced about enthusiastically. He loves maths.
“How many numbers can you see Mummy…” he lowered his voice, barely able to control his excitement. “…with your eyes turned up to top volume?”
“On top volume? Well…”
Meanwhile Wren is busy learning her sounds for phonics. She has flash cards, which we go through each night as well as her reading book. I turned over the next card in the pile, ‘Sh’.
“S, H makes sh,” I said.
She stared at me then burst out laughing. “Oh Mummy, no it doesn’t! Sh? Pfff!”
And that was that. She will not have that S, H makes sh. Every time she looks at me she laughs about it, as if to say, honestly, the things my mum comes out with! Good luck to her teacher is what I say. I’ve never yet been able to change Wren’s mind about anything she’s convinced herself of. It looks like she’ll be reading “she” in her own special way for some time to come.
