We know our eight-year-old, and we know he's a sports nut. Still, we didn't anticipate the direction he would take the assignment "make a card for our sponsor child in Africa". After decorating the front and back of the card with images of a football and baseball player, he really gathered steam when writing out the inside. (BTW, apparently baseball players have enormous left hands.)
I'm sure that Bernald, a five-year-old in Zambia will get a lot out of this, after the capable translator figures out the right idiom for "sucker-punched".
I hope most of all that Bernald and his Zambian family and friends don't believe that all Americans take pre-season football games this seriously.
We all signed the card, even Teddy (just turned 4), who gets all of the letters in his name right, although they appear in a very creative order and some repeat. Practice makes perfect.
Let me know if you need translation of the sentiments being expressed across the Atlantic.
Awesome. Today we were writing to our sponsored boy in Bangladesh. I asked Owen what he wanted to write. "Tell him I hope he has enough food so he doesn't die when he's a kid".
ReplyDeleteHmm. Maybe I'll edit that a bit.
That Owen is very direct, which I guess is a developmental thing. This is why we have to teach our kids that we don't talk about it when we see someone who's fat or old or bald or has a unibrow. In this case, Owen's directness is sweet and elemental in a Maslow's Hierarchy kind of a way.
ReplyDeleteCharlie is such a good, lively writer. Thanks for sharing this bit of creative communication. My favorite part is "Yes, where the legendary St
ReplyDeleteeelers play!"
Bernald may not be as bowled over as Charlie imagines but Charlie's grandmother is captivated.
PS Thanks for adding a large new entry so I don't have to look at the ketchup bottles any more!
That is an incredible letter. The boy writes with strong voice. That's for sure!
ReplyDeleteUm, I think some of the verve and liveliness in Charlie's writing is due to the fact that he reads a little bit of the sports pages on a regular basis. He seems to be adopting the sports beat writer's style of prose (at least when writing about the Steelers).
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