Today is a monumental day for Young Ben because he’s taking his very first test! I was relieved it was a spelling test. If I was ever good at anything in school, it was spelling. I was hopeful the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

I felt reassured when I saw the list included all the color words…red, blue, green, orange…you get the idea. In theory, these words seemed like an easy start because they’re familiar. He quickly read the flash cards that I dutifully made. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I had a proud mama moment that included a brief daydream of him standing on the stage winning a spelling bee.

*Record scratch*

I then realized the words were written in their matching color <insert eye roll>.

Anyway, we devoted time to those words every day this week and I can say, with conviction, that he was about 50/50 on those words. Turns out that the color words are actually pretty hard to spell because you can’t sound them out.

Go ahead, give it a try…

Blue becomes bloo

Orange turned into orunj

Purple morphed into prpl

In the end, I had to get pretty creative to help him remember how to spell some of them. I’m not ashamed to say that I tapped into my boy-mom potty-humor to achieve this. How you ask…well, the words yellow and brown have more than just the “ow” in common…they are also the colors of pee and poop…which go together too. I really hope he shared that gem with his class!

“So there you go.” It was reminiscent of the father from the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding trying to explain that all words are rooted in Greek. 

Like Mr. Portokalos, I was stretching it a bit. Whatever works!

I pick my kiddo up from school in an hour. There will definitely be a stop for ice cream on the way home…even if he totally bombed the test! I want him to know that he’s brave to face this next step in his school career and that even if he only spelled his name right on the test this time…he will eventually know how to spell his colors along with many other words. And if not…there’s always spell check.