"He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."

I've been sneaking in lots of spelling and phonics games into mine and Opeie's afternoons recently and he seems to be picking things up very quickly now. We've started playing a game each morning with Opeie's wooden Bigjigs Chunky Alphabet Puzzle which always has us laughing. I pick a letter from the board and Opeie gives me a word beginning with that letter. Before he gives me the word he's actually thinking of he laughs and gives me a word ending in 'at', he thinks this is hilarious especially when it comes to the words that don't make sense, 'Jat', 'Wat' and 'Zat' etc.

We've had some great words during our games and for a three year old he's come a long way, Dog has been replaced with 'disappointed' (which I thought was great) and words like question, Rhinoserous and Unicorn are becoming more frequent, he seems to have a great vocabulary for his age.

Last week when we were playing I picked up the letter 'N' and after the initial 'Nat' with a giggle Opeie very confidently said 'Nazi'. I was a little shocked but just took it as one of those odd times when kids are experimenting with their words. Like one time when we were driving to Nanny and Grandads, Opeie was sitting in the back saying Rock, sock, dock, Lock... Inevitably it was going to get to two of the words we didn't want him repeating to Grandad, and then "Fock". Stupid me said "don't say that Opeie" which was a bad move as the remainder of the journey to see my lovely in laws included an awkward 10 minutes of "fock, fock, fock" resonating from the back of the car.

Anyway back to our alphabet game and a few days later we reached 'N' again, 'Nat' passed with a chuckle and again I was greeted with an awkward 'Nazi'. I couldn't shake an image of a Hitler youth poster I had seen many years ago that had freaked me out and half expecting 'H for Hitler' or 'G for Goebbels' to be next, I asked Opeie where he had got Nazi from? In an adorable and very innocent way he just smiled and said "you know! Nazi, like in the bake off!" (he loves the bake off). I will get round to telling Opeie all about our history but for now his mispronunciation of 'Nancy' is so much more entertaining.