NEWS FLASH!!!!

It is Sunday, November 8, 2009. Michael is a teenager...he's 14!!! He called me a genius....I'm the Mom!!! This goes on the record!
The story below is what precipitated the Genius comment. I was helping Mikaela to understand that if we wait to work on learning what it means to paraphrase till after she has lunch it'll come easier, Michael said "Oh yeah, Genius" without the negative connotation....he meant it.

Those of you who know who John Bytheway is will appreciate this story more than others. He is a hilarious but serious LDS author and speaker.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/126807.John_Bytheway

We, me, Mikaela and Michael, are standing in the kitchen...

Background: Mikaela is writing a book report on The Hobbit (19 chapters). Mikaela is a very good story teller and her ability to remember details is better than most. Her book report is suppose to be 5 minutes long. So I have her time her report thus far, after a little while, seems like 5 minutes to me I come to her to check the timer...it reads 7:32. Cool, I let her know that at this point it may be a good time to paraphrase the book a little more so it will be closer to the five minute mark.

....so, I ask, how many chapters does this 7 minutes cover? One she says!!! Lightbulb moment for Mom. Paraphrasing or summarizing will be difficult. Sitting at the computer the meltdown begins. I am trying, in vain, to explain, suppose the book has 30 chapters your book report will be 210 minutes long. Not helping, Mom! It gets worse, I wander into the kitchen to finish cooking lunch and she follows me in tears...THEN IT HAPPENS....she looses her skeleton, before I know what happened she's on the floor, melting ya know, like the wicked witch from the west but using these words instead: I don't know what it means to paraphrase.
And I tell her, if you start acting like a teenager you will be spending a lot of time in your room!!!!! We all lost it, laughing...well Mikaela was crying and laughing.

Anyway, will be practicing a lot of summarizing and paraphrasing today.
I LOVE MY TEENAGERS!!!