The Damp Mop

As I write this blog, it is 12:30 at night and I have 8 awake girls in my basement. They don't seem to be running out of energy, so I finally encouraged them to put on a quiet movie and turn the lights out. I'm hoping that they will finally pass out so that I can go to bed. I am going to need a very long nap tomorrow.

I just wanted to share a humorous Christina story. Her class uses a reading program called Open Court Reading, and as part of the program, she brings home short stories that she reads to me. One of the short stories that she brought home this week was called Panda Band.

Let me give you the gist of the Panda Band short story. It is about a Panda that cleans a jazz club for a living. She is sick of her job and wants to be on stage and play the saxophone. I was pretty surprised that I didn't get a hundred questions about what a jazz club is, but that is not the point of the story.

Each story emphasizes a new sound. The sound for this story was the mp sound as in lamp. The panda in the story is pushing a damp mop. Here is the funny part:

Christina has always had speech issues. Most have cleared up, but she still has problems with the r sound. She also seems to have issues with the mp sound. She just pronounces it as a straight m sound.

Here is the story (as I remember most of it) of Panda Band. Imagine a child that can't pronounce the p in damp:

"I work at a place that plays jazz music. I push a damp mop. I am tried of pushing the damp mop. I want to be on stage and play the sax..." and then the panda ends up playing saxophone and being on stage ..."I don't have to push the damp mop anymore."

As Christina was reading this story I was really trying my hardest not to laugh, but it was so hilarious. She has no clue, either. I am convinced that the story was written by a former janitor or cleaning lady that was sick of their trade. There can't be any way that the writers didn't know what they were doing.

I needed the laugh that day. It was stressful. I enjoyed hearing Christina read it so much that I had her read it to whatever adult I ran into that afternoon. Maybe I'll share this story for her one day. She just thought that I was proud at how well she could read. If she only knew...