Warrior Cry (Well Sort-of)

Amelia, Dinah and I were at home on Thursday afternoon. I negotiated with Amelia and convinced her that watching the Corinth/Booneville game would be the thing to do. The prospect of seeing some of her family members on television sealed the deal and we tuned in. The map of Mississippi at the beginning of the broadcast impressed her. "That is where I live, Mississippi." she informed me. (I am still a little sad she doesn't call it Mr. Sippy anymore.)

We talked about the two teams that were playing. Jose', her new cousin, plays for Corinth. Nana works for Corinth school. Her cousin Jaycee goes to school at Booneville. We talked about who we would cheer for. I told her that we live in Corinth. She said, "No, I live in Mississippi." This is a recurring conversation and I am hoping that maybe after the 50th atlas presentation and slide show, this concept may be realized in her mind. I went over it again and she decided that it didn't matter who liked Corinth or Booneville, she was only going to cheer for Mississippi State. I let the topic drop as the game was in progress at this point.

Her attention waned and swelled at intervals. Thank goodness for DVR because we were able to pause live T.V. and scan the crowds for people we knew. We were able to see her cousins Avery and Jose really well. Dinah fell asleep in spite of the action. In the fourth quarter, Amelia began to tire of basketball and wanted to watch a movie. I convinced her to continue to watch the game by cheerleading with her. Without pom poms I was unable to show her what I really could do but we made do.

I thought that the cheering could be a great spelling lesson. She learned to spell "Lions" from the cheerleaders, so I thought that I would help her with the word "Warriors". I spelled it several times,
"W-A-R-R-I-O-R-S" She would repeat the letters after me. Finally, after spelling it together one last time, I yelled, "WHAT'S THAT SPELL??!!"

She smiled broadly, raised her arms high in the air and shouted, "NINJAS!!"