Small Children Listen to Crazy Lady

Chris inspired this post about words:)

While tutoring today, I was trying to explain to a 10 year old the amazing versatility and specificity of words. Yep, to a 10 year old. We've practiced reading and understanding words like trudge, frolic, and dart. You know, your various run of the mill verbs describing how you are moving. She wondered why a person couldn't just say "skip and run happily" instead of "frolic". I told her that every word has a certain feeling and you have to fit the right word in a sentence, much like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Think of it, 10 year old! Think of making a marvelous sentence with specific words to describe the perfect emotion, action, and scene! Just by using a specific word, small child!! Her eyes started to glaze over and she nodded a lot. 

Reminds me of another tutoring session with a 9 year old girl. A character in a book we were reading didn't like tomatoes and I asked small girl if she liked tomatoes (no, she didn't). This led to a long rant from Crazy Lady on the growth practices of giant farms and grocery stores, chemicals to ripen fruit and veggies, and watery gross produce. She nodded a lot. While staring. Eventually I shut up. 

Poor child in my womb.