A Favorite Book, A New Word

It's hard to believe that John Michael is now old enough to listen to some of my favorite childhood stories.  Tonight he chose "Bread and Jam for Frances."  I love all of the songs she sings to her poached egg, breaded veal cutlet and when she is skipping rope. 

One of the funniest things I will always remember about this book - okay, now it's two, because I just remembered another - is that Gracie wanted a poached egg after we read it a few times.  And they are now one of her favorites!  Too funny that Gracie gets a new favorite food from a book about a picky eater!  Second funny thing I always think about when reading this book is from my childhood.  If you read the dedication, it is for "Julia, who always liked to practice with a string bean when she could" (okay, I put quotes but I'm paraphrasing.  The boy is asleep and I am not going in the room to retrieve the book for an accurate quote!).  My oldest sister is Julia, so we always got a kick out of that dedication. 

Anyhow, after giggling our way through the book, JM and I were talking about the nursery rhymes his class is going to recite on Wednesday (they have a Mother Goose program and party).  I got him to say a few, but then he was back to his perpetual favorite these days, the alphabet.  "Is the alphabet a nursery rhyme?" was his question.  Then he went back to singing it in his own special way - without all of the traditional 26 letters.  He thinks he only needs about 10 or 12 of them.  Anyhow, tonight he thought he should only have three - A, B, and Z.  So I said the only words we would have with that alphabet would be baz-zab.  To which he replied "Did I spell a word?" 

So then I suggested we try spelling C-A-T.  That one threw him for a loop since his sister walked into his room for a minute and distracted him.   So I said let's try an easy one ... D-O-G, dog.  So he repeated the letters D-O-G.  Yay!  We were making progress. 

Then JM said "Let's spell dot."  And I was just about to ask him if he knew what made the tttt sound, when he plowed ahead and said "DotCom, let's spell DotCom."