22 Jan 2010 Invoice

Sam knows a couple of sight words, including “Yes” and “No.” She delights in pointing these out on the page when I read to her. Not since her toddlerhood has the word “No” been so interesting to her.

Yesterday and today Sam spent a couple of hours doing “work” at her grandfather’s office. She loved it. Especially since the agreed upon rate was 2 cents an hour. Yesterday she made him the above invoice for the amount of 4 cents. She told me what she wanted to say and I spelled the words for her.

This morning when she came down to breakfast she found a message from Granddaddy on the original invoice. “Mommy, this says ‘Yes I … what does this word say, Mom?”

“Did,” I read. It means that Granddaddy paid you your 4 cents yesterday.

“I KNOW!” she cried, indignantly. Then she ran off to get a marker and I heard her dictate to herself as she wrote, “I NO.”

Later she decided a longer sentence was in order, because she flipped the invoice over, wrote “YES I NO YOU DID,” and left it at her grandfather’s place at the table.

The spelling is cute but what a serendipitous choice of scrap paper.