what happened at school today
by miz f, aged 34


Lina and I were previewing a book before she was going to read it to me. I'd drawn a picture of a mouse and wrote 'mouse' then drew a picture of three mice and wrote 'mice.' She pointed to the first one and this conversation ensued:

Lina: Well, so that's the mouse, and those are the mouse-lings.
me: The what?
Lina: The mouse-lings.
me: *light begins to dawn* What are mouse-lings?
Lina: *gives me the grand pitying look of, 'oh you stupid grown-up'* You know, like the mother duck and the little ducklings. Those are the little mouse-lings.
me: Baby mice.
Lina: Yes.
me: That's a really insightful idea about what to call them.
Lina: Yeah?
me: Yeah. Only sadly, they're just called baby mice. Which is really too bad, because 'mouse-lings' might be my new favorite word.
Lina: *grins at me*
me: *grins back*
Lina: We should tell the class.
me: We totally should.

We did.