conuly

Now, you have to understand that it's not at all unusual for me to blow half my pay on books... used books, even. And my family has a membership at B&N, and believe me, that thing can pay for itself within two shopping trips. (I'm trying to convince my mother to buy online now, because of the boxtops thing, because really, 3% of our book-buying budget is a LOT of money for the school.)

And I'm still a little embarrassed.

Bought the girls a dictionary. I know, I know, we're covered in dictionaries, but we don't have a children's dictionary (well, we didn't, anyway) so I thought this would be useful.

Oh, and I bought another "Silly Dilly" songbook, Take Me Out of the Bathtub.

Now, when I got the Silly Dilly Manners book I looked online and was annoyed to find somebody complaining that the songs were too obscure unless your kid is in an "advanced music class". I even made a poll about the subject. The same issue comes up with this book, and the champion complainer on the subject also whines that "children should learn to speak right". What foul word caused this complaint? Was it ain't? Sewiously?

No, it was "Disgusty". As in "I'm dirty, I'm dusty/I somethingsomething musty/being a slob's/a full time job/I guess I am disgust-y".

You know, my inner response to this is the same as it always is: Some people just don't like books. They don't like wordplay, and they don't like people having fun, and they don't like puns or language change or poetry or music or anything nifty that can be done with words. (This person has a better complaint about the lack of manners in this book, but children learn manners the same place they learn language: from the people around them. One book will not screw that up.)

So I read the book to the nieces last night, and sure enough, Evangeline backed up my comment about how hearing a humorous mispronunciation a few times will not cause your child to be illiterate by making a face and asking "What, is he two? It's not disgusty, it's disgusting. That's silly."

Of course, this may herald in the end of the sillies for both of them. Already, Ana doesn't like me having fun. If that happens to Evangeline, I'll be all distraught :(