Captain Jelly Belly is on the cusp of being a reader. He can recognise about 15 words outright, and he is learning to sound things out. He’s really excited about this process and now he’s constantly reading signs and cereal boxes and the speedometer in the car (to Sir Monkeypants’ chagrin) and everything else around him. We’re really proud of how excited he is to be learning something new.

Each night when we’re reading his bedtime story, I point to each word as I say it. Sometimes he’ll say the word before me, if it is one that he knows; otherwise, he’ll repeat it after me and you can tell he’s trying to commit it to memory. So cool.

Last night I was reading a Thomas book and I came to the word “gone.” The Captain said, “Wait! Which one is the word ‘gone,’ again?”

So I pointed it out.

He said, “But…’gone’ ends in an ‘n’ sound. ‘Gonnnnnnnnnnnne.'”

I said, “True. But sometimes words end with an ‘e,’ and it doesn’t make any sound, it just tells you how to say the other sounds in the word. G-O-N-E is how you spell ‘gone.'”

And he rolled his eyes and looked at me like, Lady, you have NO idea what the word ‘gon’ looks like. Poor, poor Mommy.