As you may have read, I don’t play when it comes to Candy Land. The rules are the rules and you can just deal with it. This afternoon I played Candy Land with Aubrey and Emma and once again we played by the rules. After a couple of rounds, I had “mommy stuff” to do, so I agreed to let them play by themselves as long as there was no fighting.

I was sitting in the next room when I heard Emma exclaim, “AW, man!” Apparently she had picked a card that was going to cause her to move backwards on the board. Instead of celebrating Emma’s defeat, I heard Aubrey whisper, “Hey, you can pick anudder one if you want to!”
Emma: Fanks Sissy!

Aubrey is learning SO much in kindergarten. Every day she comes home knowing more sight words and sounding out even more words. She has “homework” on occasion that requires her to read short little books her teachers send home and to be honest, a lot of it has been memorization. She was learning but not necessarily reading, yet.

My mother, Shuggie, has been in town for the last week helping me with the chirren. One afternoon Shuggie and Aubrey decided to read Green Eggs and Ham. Aubrey immediately began recognizing words on the pages, “Shuggie! That says, ‘I…AM…Sam!” Aubrey squealed! She was so surprised and excited to be really reading for the first time. Shuggie coached her through several pages and helped her to sound out words.

Aubrey flipped to the next page and even though the page was covered with text, she forged ahead, sounding out words and barely stumbling over larger words like “somewhere and anywhere.” Shuggie watched in amazement as Aubrey read an entire page all by herself.
Aubrey: I do not like…them…here or…there…I do not like….th-em. Sam, I…am.
Aubrey looked up at Shuggie in awe and said, “Damn. I can read.”