Budinskette

Lastborn has an understanding of English that I didn't expect from a 5 year old. Maybe because Firstborn has developed a much stronger understanding of math and engineering and much less of English and conversation.

At 5, as is expected, Lastborn has an understanding of knock-knock jokes and makes up his own. Although his attempts do not result in particularly funny jokes, it is fun to watch him make the attempt. He has already surpassed Firstborn in his ability to create jokes. Perhaps that's the literal bent that Firstborn takes on his world. Being literal can make wordplay difficult. It does make creation of the next supercomputer easy though. So we are not complaining. Suffice it to say that they are very different children and that makes them more surprising and fun to be around. Raising Lastborn is truly a new experience, not a repeat of what we have already done.

All this to say, I was quite surprised by his ability to twist the language yesterday morn. Coming downstairs after my shower, I greeted him with a "hey there, Budinski." Just a nick-name we use around the house when we are joking around. His response??

"Hey there Budinskette!"

Then he went on to tell me that -ette is the ending for a girl, and since I'm a girl, I'm a Budinskette.

Later that day, he chanted the spelling of Mississippi. Remember that 6 months ago, he still couldn't sing his ABCs. He felt that Q-Z were overkill and would jump right from P to Now I know my ABCs. Now he can recognize every letter in a word and his dictionary of readable words is growing every day.