Old man learning Spanish

Today was the 100th day of school today and, as always, there were activities to celebrate the excitement of the day. The boy, I think I told all three of you yesterday, had to dress up as his 100 year old self. The joy he took in planning his outfit was honestly hysterical. The picture I took of him acting like he was hard of hearing did not turn out so well, so this was the final shot:



Notice he still had his Spiderman Van's on because, well, he's going to be a hip centanarian. I mean, come on.

Continuing on the track of my son today, he has a new friend in his class "for a few days" he said. After school discussions in the car always lose something in translation, so I am unsure exactly why she is there such a short period of time other than there might be more comprehensive ESL/ELL school programs. Either way, her English is not good and the boy feels very strongly that he wants to help her and make her feel welcome. It melts my heart that he is so concerned about her feeling comfortable. Once the hub arrived home, the boy begged for an app on his ipad to help him learn Spanish. Then he disappeared. I continued to get dinner ready and the hub checked the stack of mail and the kids' school papers. The boy runs in, yells, "Deciembre!!!!"....and runs out. "That means December!" he yelled as he ran back down the hall. One of the girls said, "You might want to learn January...we're kind of past December." A few minutes later, he came and asked how to say, "Hello! My name is Finley." Since both of us took a few years of Spanish, we gave him the words to say: "Hola! Mi nombre es Finley." Throughout the course of our meal, he kept coming up with things to say to his friend. "How do I say 'I speak Spanish a little.' or 'I like pears and dogs.'?" We kept telling him that "Hola! Mi nombre es Finley" was all he needed to say tomorrow. "Less is more son." Dinner was done and I was cleaning up when he comes running in again..."CABEZA!!!! That means head!"...and flies back down the hall. The hub and I looked at each other, silently acknowledging that it was going to be a long evening. Indeed it has been. I really just need to record myself saying, "Hola! Mi nombre es Finley." so I can play it several hundred times to him. Once he found out that a place we know is a Spanish word meaning "beautiful", he asked us how to use it in a sentence to her. "'Hola! Mi nombre es Finley.' is all you need to say, son. Please understand" the hub begged. "Could I say she had a beautiful head? I know those words." "'HOLA! MI NOMBRE ES FINLEY!!!' is it for tonight. We appreciate your concern, but just perfect one line and leave it!" we both said. A little aside here, I realize that I stink when it comes to correctly punctuating quotations and quotes within quotes. Forgive me. Also, I realize that an upside down exclamation point should be on the other side of Hola!, but I cannot figure out how to do that on this contraption.

So, just say a little prayer that he says his one line of Spanish to his new friend, it is well received and no ad libbing occurs. Bless his kind heart. He just wants her to feel welcome and I adore him for that.
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