Word Nerd

photo courtesy of Destinee Blau Photography

Last week, we were sitting with our four oldest children eating ice cream. Lucy was taking forever because she always takes forever... eats slower than just about any other person I've ever seen eat. Jordan was teasing her a little because we were all finished and she still had half her ice cream to go.

Sam looked at her and said, "It's okay Lucy. You just like to savor your ice cream. There's nothing wrong with that."

Josh looked at Sam. "Savor, huh?"

Sam smiled. "It's on my list of words seldom used by children," he said.

Ha! Should we put seldom on that list as well?

(I later learned from Jordan that Sam first heard this line on the cartoon Phineas and Ferb. But the moment was so perfect, he gets points for flawless execution, if not originality.)

***
On a different occasion, I asked Sam to come over and help finish folding the last of the laundry. His response?

"Mom, I don't particularly delight in thrusting my hands into baskets of other peoples' underwear."

Dude. Me neither.

I congratulated him on his word choices then, of course, made him fold the rest of the laundry.

***

Yesterday, he described his efforts to accomplish something as "the most that he could muster."

***
When I warned him he better not sit down at the computer until his chores were done, he told me, "It was never my intention to do so."

***
Seriously. 8-year-old boys don't normally talk like this, do they? I'll admit, it makes his Mamma's writer heart proud to hear him use bigger words in proper context. He's always been an expressive kid. It only makes sense as he reads and increases his vocabulary, that new words would work their way to the surface. The thing is, he manages to do it without even a trace of self awareness, as if it's perfectly natural for him to express himself with such flare.

Sam has always been a persuasive kid. He's full of charm and charisma, and has a cocky confidence that has often gotten him in trouble. Once he convinced a fellow classmate that she really, really wanted to give him her Twinkie. Of course, she did. Then she cried. When the teacher asked Sam what happened, he responded, "What? She gave it to me!"

(Dear God. Please help me to teach Sam to use his influence for good. Amen.)

If there is a question to be asked, Sam will ask it. If there is room for doubt, he will find it. If there is a plan, plot, scheme, or contrivance, it's a pretty safe bet that Sam is somehow involved. Just yesterday, I heard him gathering his siblings around him, asking them if they agreed that there was a measure of injustice when it came to computer use in our house. 

"Just think," I heard him say. "She has the right, whenever she wants, to kick us off the computer just so she can check her email?!"

(It only took a moment for me to squelch THAT uprising.)

There are so many things about this kid that make me crazy. He's presumptuous and gutsy and is terrible when it comes to keeping his room clean. He's a pack rat (because everything has a future use) and leaves half completed projects and experiments ALL over my house, ALL the time. He can forget an assignment 4.7 seconds after you ask him to complete it and is a tiny bit prone to exaggeration.

And yet, he is the funniest, most endearing kid I know. He can make friends with anyone, young and old alike. He is quick witted. He is smart. He reads books faster than I do. And the thing I like about him the most? He doesn't give a flying duck's fart about what other people think about him. He doesn't care that he's smaller than everyone his age. He doesn't care that he's the only kid in our family with curly hair. The greatest thing in the world about Sam is that Sam loves being Sam.

My hope is that Josh and I will be able to channel his energy into positive and productive things and that he will have a desire to use his big words and persuasive charm for good. If not? Oh buddy. Look out world. You've been warned.