Indicators of things to come

The other day at breakfast Julia and Lea were having a small argument over spelling which ultimately lead to several indicators for me. Julia had asked Lea to spell the word "wish" and at this stage Lea does not know how to spell it. So they were arguing about it something like this: Julia - "is not", Lea - "is too", Julia - "is not" etc. etc. You get the idea, it was quickly getting on my nerves.

So I suggested to Julia that just because a word was easy for her did not mean it was easy for Lea. I then said there are lots of words that you don't know how to spell which might be hard for you. This is where I got into trouble. I started to try and think of a word that was harder that she could not spell and the first word that came to mind was "indignation", which was my first indicator and in my defense this was still early and pre-coffee.

I said Julia for example the word "indignation" to which she said (somewhat indignantly) "OK, what's the definition?" and her mini-spelling B was on. After quickly deciding that "you" and "to be indignant" were not reasonable answers I gave her a definition. She took that in and then said "can you pronounce the word again please". Thank god at this stage she did not ask me for the language of origin!

I slowly repeated the word and without missing a beat she spelled it! and said "see daddy I am a good at spelling." Now I was somewhat backed into a corner so I said (somewhat indignantly) "Great, that was very good, but my point is still that there are some words which are hard for Lea and not for you." hoping that I could exit this gracefully, with a point and saving face. I did but this was certainly my second indicator of things to come.