Arguing with a Paper Bag

My 8 year old argued with a paper bag today. Literally.

It all began with her coming to me and saying “Brittany thinks sugar is spelled s-U-g-a-r.”

I said, “it is.”

“Not it’s not,” she replied, it’s “s-H-u-g-ar.” She went on….“Listen, it has the s-h sound….shuuugar.” I told her that although it did sound like sh, it actually was s-u.

I do realize her name is Savannah and that many people from the city after which she is named (Paula Deen comes to mind) do indeed pronounce it “SHugar” but that is still not the correct way to spell it.

Luckily I had a few bags of sugar in my pantry. When I pulled one out and showed her….“Look Savannah, right here on the bag s-u” she said “well, it’s wrong.” Luckily I had another and showed her that one. Her response….“well they don’t know how to spell it because it sounds like SHugar.”

This is the same child who argued with me for two solid days over whether her spelling word (that would be veil) was actually pronounced veal. I told her she was going to get it wrong on the test, I told her to ask her teacher the correct pronunciation…for crying out loud….I asked her if she might consider law school….and yet she still insisted. It’s veal Mom!!! Savannah RARELY gets a spelling word wrong, but that day she did. You guessed it….veil. She probably did it just to spite me.

I think I remember my mom once telling me I’d argue with a fence post. Maybe this is my past coming back to haunt me. I don’t know, but I do know it is both exasperating and exhausting to argue with her. But determined she continues to be.

Her teacher when she was 3 years old told me “Savannah will probably end up as President of the United States. Either that or in detention somewhere.” Her first grade teacher told me she could leave for 3 weeks and the class would never skip a beat because Savannah would keep everything running smoothly. And I once overheard one of her friends say…“Savannah, you don’t have to be in charge of EVERYthing.”

This is the same child who when she was 15 months old did not walk or talk. She was in physical, occupational and speech therapy. She did test after test at Texas Children’s Hospital. They gave us brochures on special needs children and told us to be glad they had caught it early.

That is until we came back at 18 months. On THAT day, with the doctors on hand to evaluate her, she walked over to the puzzle table and began working puzzle after puzzle. After a few they called in another doctor. Turns out he was the head of neurology. After watching her work a puzzle, that I later learned was intended for 7 year olds, he declared….“we’ve either just seen a modern miracle or this child has been fooling even the best of doctors.”

Now I’m a big believer in miracles, don’t get me wrong, but I think that Chief of Neurology…aka head doctor….was onto something. His advice to us was to “never let this child fall through the cracks. Keep her stimulated, busy, challenged.”

Most days I’m not sure who is challenging whom, but we’re doing our best.

Oh, and the best part….when I finally convinced Savannah that it was in fact s-U-gar….Brittany said, you know, I think it should be s-u-g-E-r.

I give up.