Thursday, April 10, 2008

How many days until...?

This is one of Bethany's favourite questions. This morning, she asked me how many days it had been since my 5th birthday. Usually I put her off with a non-answer -- 8 calendar pages until your birthday, don't ask me days until we are on the right page! Today, I decided to answer her, so she would realize why I don't want to calculate it all the time.
So, after much ado and calculation, I realized that it has been 9777 days since I turned 5. What a nice number! Later I checked my calculations at this site, and found out that I actually got it right. (There have been 7 leap years, plus 2000 which wasn't a leap year, since I was born.)
I also downloaded a "Days until my birthday" gadget for Bethany, so now I don't have to worry about that question any more.
(Just read over this post and realized almost every sentence ended in an exclamation point. Ever have that problem? I changed some.)
While I was doing schoolwork with Bethany and Matthias this morning, Carrie Ann ran into the kitchen shouting " 'Ot! 'Ot! 'Ot!" ("'Ot" means Hot.) What was so hot that it concerned her so much? I followed her, and she pointed at the heat vent in the hallway -- the furnace was on, and it was blowing hot air up in her face! She is still short enough, and her skin sensitive enough, that she didn't dare walk over it to get to the bedroom. Wow, that is one of the first times she has really managed to use English to get my attention and explain a problem to me! Neat!

2 comments:

Roboseyo said...

Exclamation! Points; overwhelming, your. . . post? Be: careful; punctuation, can--obfuscate~your (writing's) meaning!!!

You remember in the Vancouver Sun, there was Rex Morgan, that ongoing drama/comic? Every single sentence in Rex Morgan ended in either a ? or an ! -- I read that somewhere, and checked regularly, and I never saw a period once.

I also once read an article that thought the exclamation point should be abolished: if my writing doesn't add emphasis to one part or another of my paragraph, then a little shorthand indicator shouldn't exist that allows me to hide my lack of flow with punctuation.

I like exclamation points, but think they should be used in moderation, though blogs are informal, so do what you like. Even write in all caps if you want!

Kathy said...

Smart little gal!!! (Lots of exclamations there. Gotta' get a handle on that!!!)