O-H D-A-M-N

Katie's reading has just improved so much since she started at her new school. I don't know if it is something the school is doing differently or just coincidence but Anna and I are very pleased.

There's a downside of course. Like most parents, when we don't want the kids to know what we are talking about, we spell it out. Usually it's to discuss a decision ahead of time so we can present a united front to the kids. You can see where I'm going with this.

Last night at dinner, the question of dessert came up, as it always does.

Katie: "What's for dessert?"

Anna and I look at each other. I should note that I tend to skew more towards junk food dessert -ice cream, pudding, chocolate- while Anna tends more to the healthy (or at least healthier) - apples, pretzels- Hence the need for discussion. (I still don't understand why she is the favorite parent but I digress).

Me (to Anna): "P-U-D-D-I-N-G ?"
Katie: "Did you just spell pudding?"

Damn it. She learned how to spell ice cream ages ago so we usually spell something else like "Breyers" or something to get around it. This leads to two problems: (1) if one of us picks something "weird" as the substitute word so the other doesn't get the code or (2) Anna spells the word too fast and I can't keep up. This leads to her re-spelling it 3 times and then yelling at me.

We also know enough of the alphabet in sign language that we've used that on occasion.

We're either going to have to start discussing these things ahead of time (unlikely) or learn Morse code.

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