Phoebe, sweet Phoebe

This morning, Phoebe brought me a paper that said: "Phoebe, sweet Phoebe."

Technically it said:

PHOEBE
SOET
PHOEBE

I asked her how she figured out how to spell sweet (so-eet) and she said that she just said it over and over again until it came into her brain. I believe we call that "sounding it out."

I asked her why she chose to write what she did.

"Is it because you're a sweetie?"

"No," she told me. "It's because I'm a very good helper!"

"That's excellent!" I said. "Because I happen to need a very good helper to unload the dishwasher."

Unloading the dishwasher is her daily chore, and she is well aware of this fact (but often chooses to ignore said fact).

"Will you be my sweet little helper and unload the dishwasher?" I asked.

"No, thanks," she said, skipping away.

(Now I know that conventional parenting wisdom is to be very direct—don't ask a question if it isn't a question, that sort of thing. But I am Canadian and being indirect is a Way of Life which "can involve using subtle hints or vague phrasing that conveys a message without causing tension or confrontation," such as issuing a command through a question—because only a monster* would issue a command in imperative form. I have had to explain this cultural quirk to my children because, um, a Canadian child raised in Canada would never (or rarely) understand a command-as-question as actual deference to their preference (it rhymes, so it must be true) and would understand it as more of a...mandatory request).

* this is hyperbole

So, anyway, I'm not quite sure what she meant by being a very good helper. But we were awfully proud of her writing. 

"It looks like you did some good writing time," Andrew remarked.

"Thanks," she said. "But I'm not going to write the date at the top of the page like the big kids do."

"Why not?" Andrew said. 

"Because I don't want to. It's hard."

"But today is May 1st! That's exciting! Surely you can figure out how to spell May!"

"Hmmmm...M...." she said. "May, May, May. A... May, May, May. Y!"

"That's right! M-A-Y spells May! Go write it down!"

"Okay!"

So she ran off to go write May down on her paper. When she had done that I told her she could write a little one after May and that would say May 1st!

"Or," she said. "I could just write first! Let's see...F...R...S...T! First!"

Here she is drawing a picture for her swim coach at the bottom of her page:

She is wearing a swimsuit—changed directly into it from pyjamas...because it's May. And May means the pool is open. So even though it's only 18°C right now (that's cold here, okay? 64°F) she woke up determined to go to the pool. 

Also, her first day of swimming isn't until after Memorial Day. 

But she drew a picture for her coach at the bottom of the page (and then was frustrated that her picture was somehow upside down, as if she wasn't in charge of the whole process).