Peas in a Pod

We are enjoying our lazy days of summer vacation.  After a nice quiet morning at the library, we ran a few errands and played outside for a bit before lunch.  As I am finishing getting lunch on plates, the boys are circled round the table munching on slices of tomato and cucumbers and gabbing a bit.

Honestly, I'm only half listening to the conversation, but my ears perk when I hear "P."  With having all boys, they find bathroom humor VERY funny.  Pretty much anything can be made in a gut busting joke if you insert a word like pee, fart, poop, potty, well you get the idea.  Now I'm an advocate for free speech and all, but some things do not need to be discussed in certain places, like around the table.  I also know that attempting to abolish something altogether often times only amplifies the desire to do it.  That is why we make it very clear that you are welcome to discuss these natural body occurrences all you like, but you must do so in the proper place: the bathroom.  So as I was saying, I perked up my ears to hear the context of their conversation.  From my vantage point near the stove, I hear some giggling and "P" continues to surface.  I begin to prepare myself to invite the boys to continue their discussion in the bathroom when I hear this.

"P.  Rob.  It is a letter too you know."

"Yea, I know.  I am four!  It looks like the letter at the end of my name."

"No, your name has a b.  Not a p.  R-o-b. Not R-o-p."

"R-o-p?  That sounds silly!!"

"Huh.  I never thought about how much p and b sound the same.  Well, their names, not their sounds.  And they do look a lot alike too, but b's line goes up and p's line goes down."  As a reading teacher with my almost master's in literacy, this conversation was melting my heart! Talk about metacognition at work!  Do you think I could find a way to squeeze this into my capstone project?

Ray continued on, "Rob, did you know there is another kind of P?  There's the bathroom kind, the letter AND the one we eat.  And they are all spelt different!"

Rob finds this humorous and starts giggling.  "I like to eat peas."  (I can't help but wondering if he's really thinking of the vegetable pea or still stuck on the idea pee as in urine....)

"P!  P! P!" chimes in Sam.

"UH!!!  Sam is saying P, P, P!" Rob alerts everyone.

"He's talking about the little green kind.  Right Sam?"  Ray scrunches his forefinger  into a small ball and peers through it at Sam.  "You mean the little circle peas we eat right Sam?"

"Yup, uh-huh," nods Sam enthusiastically.

"Whew," says Rob.  "Mom, is our macaroni ready now?"

"Yes sir.  Here it is.  Let's eat!"  I grab the plates and forks with a smile on my face thinking that I am so blessed to have these three little peas in a pod.

My 3 peas in a pod