The Winterrose Chronicles 15: INCOMING!!

Doing the summer "Bridge" worksheets with Glory can be an interesting experience. (The "Bridge" books are to help your child retain what they learned through the summer and to prepare them for the next school year, Glory does them every summer.) One of the sections for today was to "Look at the underlined word in each sentence. Choose another word or words that mean the same as the underlined word."

The sentence in question said, "Don't use the phone; it's only for incoming calls." "Incoming" was the underlined word.

We had the following conversation.

"Hmm, you wrote "coming" as the word or words to replace the underlined word." (Seriously, I really did say it like that.) "Do you know what "incoming" means?"

"Yes" She was very grumpy when she answered me, I could tell this sentence had given her a lot of grief and frustration.

"What does it mean?"

Eye roll at my obvious, and stupid, question. "Incoming....LOOK OUT BELOOOOOOOOW!"

The "mom voice" in my head chanted *Do NOT laugh, DO NOT LAUGH!!*

I said, "So what do you think this sentence means?"

Her, still frustrated at such a stupid question and that this was such a weird sentence, "Wull It means that when you answer the phone someone does a belly flop on your head." She mimed answering a phone. "Hello?" "Incoming!....Look out BELOOOOOOOW!" She fell to the ground, having just suffered a death by belly flop. Her mime phone was still clutched in her hand. Then she looked up at me as if to say "Duh mom!" But also, "I do NOT understand why they are saying that!"

That was too funny. We had to act it out a few times. (I would like to see this type of death investigated on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Detective STOP! Don't answer that phone! That phone is for incoming calls only! It takes a ruthless criminal to install a phone like that.)

When we both stopped laughing I said "So you think that this is a phone that when you answer it, you get a person falling on your head?"

She said, "Yeah! That's why they don't want you to answer it!"

Perfectly reasonable.

"So why did you write "coming" as the word to replace it?"

"Because the belly flop would beEEEeee", arms waving about and crazy eyes, "COMING!!"

A perfectly logical conclusion! She is such a cool kid. With a vast knowledge of the English language and the many ways you can use it to confuse a person. I debated telling her the real meaning of "incoming". Who would want to ruin the great word she made it to be? Her version of an "incoming calls only" phone was way cooler than the "real" meaning.

This reminded me of when she was doing a homework assignment in 2nd grade and the question went something like, "Which would you rather have, one, one dollar bill or 107 pennies?"

She wrote, "The dollar. I could never keep track of that many PENNIES!!" Since this teacher encouraged drawing on the papers to "show your work", she drew "crazy pennies" all over the paper. It was a great way to illustrate her point.

She understood that the pennies were worth more than the dollar, but she also understood that she has a hard time keeping track of her money and that it's much easier to keep track of *one* dollar bill than it is to keep track of *over 100* pennies. Since the question was which would you rather have, and not which is worth more, I discussed her answer with the teacher.

She got an "A". Cause who can argue with logic like that?

I married a guy that likes boobs. I've got 'em. Our love should last forever.

I have a daughter who thinks I'm the best mom ever! (She doesn't get out much.)

I'm a room mom, PTA Queen, and sometimes I even go out and earn money just for kicks...and money.

Fame is all I'm looking for..and jeans that make my bum look super fly.