Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Words

My world is awash with words. I spend 90% of my time at work organizing words. Then I reorganize them at home into different meanings and phrases. Sometimes the words are easily organized. Sometimes they fight back and refuse to settle into place. Occasionally, once organized, they break free and attack without warning. I had some words attack me yesterday.

My little boy, seeing my distress, took my face in his hands and asked how he could help. He gave me his teddy to cuddle, and wrapped a blanket around my legs. He brought me a tissue, snuggled up close to read a story, and replaced my words with little boy words. Next we threw out words altogether and ran around the basement screaming. Sometimes sounds are best when they are not organized into words.

Do you think running around screaming would work in the classroom?

Our basement is finished, by the way. Except that the doors on all the rooms need to be shaved and re-hung. And the windows need to be finished. And there are still a couple of paint and patch jobs. But we finally got carpet, and it makes the rooms downstairs just so warm and livable! I'm down there now writing this. I love our new basement. Someday soon I will post pictures and you can love it, too.

2 comments:

Mark and Emily said...

Unfortunately some of my middle school students try to scream and run around the room. I am not appreciative of their gesture, however, and assign after school detentions! ;)

Anonymous said...

I would love to have someone tuck me in with a nice blanket and give me a teddy bear to cuddle. Now THAT would be nice.