Note Passing

I've always been a note passer.  In fifth grade, my best friend and I created an entire secret coded alphabet so we could pass notes without anyone being able to read what we wrote.  (We got fast at it too, being able to write nearly as quickly in code as in the regular alphabet, and to this day I can remember about 6 or 7 letters from it.)  My family is particularly guilty of passing notes in Church.  (Playing tic-tac-toe, number games and the 'dot game' also fall into this category.)  The first year of marriage, I carried a small notebook with me in my scripture case, and each week I'd trick Greg into getting into long winded written conversations with me during Sunday School.  I am officially a horrible influence.

And, like so many of our bad habits, I'm passing this one on to my kids.  :-)  Today was Stake Conference, and while my Dad had to rush off to fix Star's broken furnace, and Greg stayed home with a sick Isaac and a wilder-than-we-want-to-deal-with-in-a-2-hour-meeting Ellie, my Mom, Annie and I headed off, just us girls, to our meetings this morning.  It wasn't long before Annie was writing a letter to Cody, and then wanting ideas of what to write in her notebook.  To this day I'm convinced one of the reasons Annie recognized all her letters so early was because for the first two and a half years of her life, we lived in my parents Ward, and my Mom would write letters and words and names with Annie throughout Sacrament Meeting to keep her quietly entertained.  Well, today I wrote out a couple math problems for Annie, keeping them simple as to not frustrate her and cause any math-related-drama during the meeting.  But soon, my Mom was writing out problems for her, and my Mom is able to 'push' Annie a lot further than I can without tears or whining, and Annie was having fun working out math problems with Grandma.  When one got 'too hard', Grandma just bribed her with a new necklace if she'd attempt the problem, and Annie had it solved in no time . . .

The 'too hard one' was adding three numbers, instead of just two.  The problem in the middle, second row from the bottom was when Annie wanted to challenge Grandma and gave her a problem of her own to do.

 I am fairly confident that if I just let Annie attend Church with my Mom each week, I would not have to teach her anything until Junior High . . .


Grandma and Annie went on to carry on a long one-sided conversation on paper (my Mom would ask questions in writing, that Annie would have to read and then answer), and eventually the topic came around to Annie 'earning' a prize for Ellie as well (since she'd already earned a prize from doing her first page of math.)  Annie said she was willing to do ONE last math problem with Grandma, in exchange for Ellie getting a matching Christmas necklace to Annie's promised new one.  Here was the problem Grandma came up with . . .

Grandma is very tricky.  :-)

Here's a couple pages of notes from Grandma to Annie . . . 

I already mentioned Annie knew her letter because Grandma constantly wrote them for her during Church, but I should also mention I think a huge part of her ability to read came from my Mom writing her out stories and notes from a really young age . . .

The nice thing about having a 'village' to help raise your kids, is that they sure learn a lot more this way!  There are things my parents teach my kids to do that I wouldn't have even thought they were anywhere near ready to learn . . . my parents don't seem to have any of those same preconceived notions about what and when kids can learn.  I would be like, "It's too early to teach them that," and my Mom & Dad are more like, "Teach it to 'em, then they'll know it."  Which is also why Annie is currently creaming most of the extended family in the card game 'Mormon Bridge'.  Grandpa taught it to her, and it turns out she rocks at it.