Verbage and hiking...

I took David and Jacob hiking last weekend on the Billy Goat trail.  We had a great time.  It's a strenuous hike with a lot of rock scrambling.  I knew they would love the first mile or so but was worried that they couldn't handle four miles of climbing up and sliding down rocks.  They loved it.  I had a hard time keeping up with them.  Then we started walking back to the car.  It was a leisurely mile walk on a flat path.  It nearly ended them.  The whining was beyond what I thought possible.  I almost had to walk far ahead and pretend I didn't know them.  In the future, I will save the "I just finished an awesome hike" candy bar until we actually reach the car.

 
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I read Room by Emma Donahue.  It was a good read but...really, really disturbing.  She took me to the edge of what I could handle in suspense and horror.  My favorite part was the way she portrayed the five year old narrator.  She did a fantastic job of representing what is to think and speak at that age.  The room is not heated, it gets "hotted".  My second son is five.  Until I read that book, I hadn't noticed how often he turns adjectives and nouns into verbs.  

I read The Tale of Despereaux to the boys a few weeks ago.  It's my favorite read aloud this year.  It's a page turner and beautifully captures human nature in a way that's still appropriate for children.  A bad guy is not a bad guy.  He has a story.  There is a reason he became that way.  Anyway, in explaining how a young girl lost her hearing, the author writes:

The less Mig heard, the less she understood.  The less she understood, the more things she did wrong; and the more things she did wrong, the more clouts to the ear she received, and the less she heard.  This is what is known as a vicious circle.

Then my five year old, Jacob pronounced emphatically:

We do NOT want to get vicious circled.

That's right, buddy.