Are we?

This story happened in late fall of 2009. Charlie still couldn't say his R's very well. (Funny how he's learned to say them as George has been learning to say them correctly.)

Charlie asked me, "Are we chunnel?" I could not for the life of me figure out what "chunnel" was. I thought that maybe there was an R sound in there that Charlie could not say correctly. So I kept repeating that word as best as I could back to him.

"Chunnel?"

"No. Chunnel."

"Chewnal?"

"No, chunnel."

"Churnel?"

"Yes! Chunnel!"

"Churnel? Really? Where did you hear that word?"

"I don't remember. Are we chunnel?"

"I've never heard the word chunnel. Do you remember the sentence you heard it in?"

"Like owls are NOT chunnel, so are we chunnel?"

Suddenly, it all clicked. NOT churnel made a lot more sense than churnel. Nocturnal! I laughed so hard! So I had to explain that the word is actually "NOCturnal" not "NOTchurnal."

Even though he did not get it right, I thought that was some pretty good critical thinking on his part to know that nocturnal meant sleeping during the day and being active at night and that we were opposite.

Love that kid!