This Just In: Parents Misspell Their Own Child's Name

In an astonishing turn of events today, a precocious 3-year old child by the name of Eve Bradley discovered that her parents grossly misspelled her baby brother's name. The discovery was made while the family was driving to a tea party on Centreville Road. While sounding out the names of various family members, Eve noticed that her brother's name did not end in a Ssssss sound as the spelling of his name might indicate. Instead, it ended in a Zzzzz sound. The mortified mother, in an effort to save face, made an attempt to trick the children into believing that the letter "S" could also make a gentle Zzz sound, but the children were no fools. Older sister Laine, appalled at this finding told the press, "Mom, how could you spell his name wrong? He's your own son!" The illiterate and ashamed parents declined to comment.

Photograph of wronged boy, Jamez Bradley

This is not the first time Eve, champion reader, has uncovered a major error. In fact, only last week, while inspecting the label on a pair of penguin pajamas sent to her for Christmas by a doting aunt, she noted "The makers of these jammies were not so smart. They thought my name was babyGap." There is no question that Gap, Inc. will be receiving a letter on the issue shortly.

Ear Rock Update

This morning while I was getting ready, Laine woke up and came to me and said "Mom! While I was sleeping, the rock came out of my ear!" She produced a small ear wax covered rock, and I think she learned her lesson. Whew! Thank goodness it came out on it's own. Our insurance probably doesn't offer stupidity coverage.

You did WHAT?!

So today, after Laine and Eve are done with their bath, Laine walks by me wrapped in a towel with a finger in her ear and says,

"Hey! I can feel my rock."

Me: "What rock?"

"The rock that I put in my ear."

"Oh, that rock. What?!?!?! When did you put a rock in your ear?"

"While I was at school."

So I pull out my pen light, take a peek and sure enough, there'a a rock the size of a small shriveled pea lodged really deep in Laine's ear. It's so far in and so tightly stuck that I can't get anything in around it to scoop it out.

"What were you thinking?! Tell me exactly how this happened."

"Well I was at school and it was resting time so I was really bored, but then I found a rock on my cot."

"So you decided to put it in your ear."

"Yup. But you don't have to worry because I will never put rocks in my ear again."

"Right. Okay. Hold on."

Ring ring

"Josh! Laine has a rock stuck in her ear. What do I do?"

Josh (it's so great to have a ear nose throat doc in the family) assured me that this sort of thing happens all the time and that she'll be okay. Chris and I made further attempts to remove it, but with no success. So I guess Laine is just going to have to live with a rock in her ear until the next time she sees a doc. I was mad about it, but Chris relates completely. Once when he was like 16 he got a part of a pen stuck in his ear and had to go to the Instacare to get it removed. What a romantic Valentine's this has been.

Our little reader

WoW savvy children

This is how James and Chris have been spending most of their evenings lately. After the girls go to bed, I study for school and Chris takes James down in the basement and plays Warcraft. This is the way all three of our kids have been raised from infancy and as a result, Chris often gets asked questions like, "Hey, Dad, do I need to left click or right click on the Alterack(sp?) Valley Battlemaster?" Laine regularly takes Chris's Warcraft character on excursions while he's away from the computer. When he comes back, he always goes, "Huh? How did my guy end up way out here? And Laine, how did you manage to make our guy fall off the flying lion?"

But they also get reading time, which is good. I was amazed at Eve today. She played hangman with me today in a "fun new way" where we play it on a 7 or 8 inch magna-doodle board and don't write out dashes for how many letters we have. I was really amazed at her ability to think out in her little brain where and how far apart each letter had to be placed. Her first word was Lainey, and when Laine guessed the letter 'E' first, she carefully wrote it about an inch in from the right hand side of the board and continued this way until we guessed the word. They can both read so many words. Chris said that they read "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein all by themselves with the exception of 3 pages tonight.

Some pictures from our pre-blogging days

I was looking through some of our pictures that are a couple of years old, and I can't believe how much the kids have already changed.

Laine seemed so tiny during her first season of dance with Miss Julie. She and her dance classes are high on our list of things we miss about Salt Lake. She's right up there with all of our friends and family, Cafe Rio, snow, the Beehive Tea Room, and the Boulevard.

This was taken 2 years ago when Eve was still shaped like a little bean. This past year, she's really grown and doesn't look so stubby anymore. Despite her tininess, Eve started walking just before she turned 9 months old and has always been able to pretty much keep up with Laine on the playground and in doing most other things that require good motor skills.

Newborn Eve with Daddy

Valentine's 2 years ago
This was just taken last October and already our little man looks bigger.