1. Sitting in the tub waiting to get washed up the other day, she looked at the shampoo bottle and asked, “What does ‘h-y-p-o-a-l-l-e-r-g-e-n-i-c’ spell?” When I told her and tried to explain what the word meant, she nodded calmly. A few minutes later, as she was using the kids’ body wash, she asked, with perfect pronunciation, “So, is this body wash hypoallergenic? It seems like it must be, since it doesn’t bother my skin.” Dermatology: the hot new kindergarten subject.
2. Telling me about an art project at kindergarten, she said that a friend of hers had tried to draw a unicorn. I commented that drawing a unicorn sounded kinda difficult, but Julia said, “Well, she did something funny: she just took her shirt off and put it on our table and drew the unicorn that was on her shirt.” My eyes goggled. “But it was okay because she had another shirt on underneath the unicorn shirt.” Whew.
3. Trying to write a note to her mom, she carefully spelled out several words, then stopped. “How to you spell ‘essay’? Oh, wait, no, don’t tell me! That’s easy! It’s just s-a!” I had to laugh at that one. She was disappointed that the “real word” had so many extra letters in it.