I Love Words & Hate Numbers

In case you haven't noticed, I LOVE words. The written word- books, poetry, song lyrics, quotes. The spoken word- have you ever tried to END a conversation with me? I could chat the ear off a deaf person. Walking through Target I see a wall plaque that simply says "Love Is Spoken Here" and I HAVE to have it. Dustin thinks my obsession with wanting to decorate the house with 14" x 6" pieces of wood with a few words on them is silly. Why would you pay money to look at words vs. hanging a painting or something? He argues. Words are just so beautiful to me though. One of my favorite parts of parenting is watching my kids' vocabularies emerge and then fostering a love of reading in them. I had more fun than they did when they were young enough to enjoy cutting words out of playdough with letter cookie cutters and I so miss practicing writing their names in a baking dish filled with salt... My fridge is covered with a couple hundred magnetic poetry magnets. I strategically stash books and magazines into visual places in each room of the house so that no matter where the kids go there is something for them to read, hoping that they will grow up so immersed in literacy that they will "magically" grow up to love words as much as I do.

Numbers, on the other hand, are cruel & ugly things. Case in point, we have a new scale in the bathroom. Have I dared step on it yet? Absolutely not! It's tempted me, silently calling my name from its place in the corner, "Aren't you curious? Don't you want to know?" I just know in the pit of my pudgy stomach that I'm not going to like that number though. I'm sure it's right up there with those other despised numbers: gas prices, Iraqi death toll, my stroke threatening blood pressure. See? Numbers are terrible things. Lane would disagree with me. When he was in first grade and Tatton was a very phonetic preschooler, Tatton was sounding out an easy reader book. Lane walked up and gave him some big brotherly advice, "Don't bother. The English language is so confusing. Just learn math. Math is about facts." Now, I see Lane's point. I do. All this I before E except after C stuff can be a little bewildering if you think about it. All you have to do is sit and watch an elementary school spelling bee to be reminded of how deceptive some words can be. I don't know... I just love them though, warts and all. Give me a journalism class over an accounting class any day. And all you number lovers out there- we're just going to have to agree to disagree.