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Sylvia's on the back (October 2005)

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Jeremy's journal

He'd had the sense, moments earlier, that Caroline was on the verge of accusing him of being "depressed," and he was afraid that if the idea that he was depressed gained currency, he would forfeit his right to his opinions. He would forfeit his moral certainties; every word he spoke would become a symptom of disease; he would never win an argument.

Jonathan Franzen


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🦋 More Spelling

A milestone of sorts at dinner today; Sylvia figured out her first spelled-out word (i.e. one whose meaning Ellen and I are trying to keep from her by spelling it out). I served the corn and Ellen asked if she could please have a little pat of B U T T E R -- this going on the assumption, as we have for a while, that hearing the word "butter" while at the dinner table is a bad combination for Sylvia -- it drives her into a butter-eating frenzy that does not seem to be provoked by the mere sight of the comestible. But I digress -- Sylvia asked, "What['s] B R?"*

So I gave her a little help -- passed the substance over to Ellen and said "Here you go Mommy, here's your B U T T E R." Now Sylvia, "I like some B R too!" So we talked about it in spelled-out form throughout the meal; by the end of dinner Sylvia was calling it B R T R, reminding me of the "Frances" books.

...

In other Sylvia news, I was glad to read a book with her today (Dan and Dan, about a boy and his grandfather) and have her do almost all the reading -- she said about 12 sentences out of the book's 15 or so. She has taken to calling Lola "Mr. Dog"; and yesterday on the front lawn she wrapped a flag around her like a toga and said, "I'm Mr. Flag!"

-----

* A note on punctuation -- when I use square brackets quoting Sylvia, it is something I think she said but I may have just filled in for her out of habit of listening to her learn to talk.

posted evening of Monday, July 14th, 2003
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