Clever clogs

Littleboy 2 is getting far too clever for his own good.

I don't just mean academically, although it's true he's currently on a roll at school. He keeps coming home from school with certificates for good work, stickers from the head teacher and so forth (though is mysteriously reticent on what these were actually awarded for).

And whereas his brother is definitely the mathematician in the family, I think he may have inherited my own preference for the written word. He's recently begun a diary, and is keen to write everything down. Meanwhile a future literary critic may be emerging: he rather startled us at the weekend by pointing out, while watching Lord of The Rings, that Sauron's eye is the symbol of evil whereas the tree of Gondor is the symbol of good. Deep thoughts for a six year old.

Yesterday's spelling homework was words with apostrophes: you'll, they're, we're, I'm etc. There was a little confusion at first, so I got him to write some sentences using the various words. When we got to You're, I helpfully jumped into explain the difference between Your and You're, and suggested he write a sentence containing both. He looked at me slyly and trotted out the following:

"You're silly, Mummy, for leaving your brand new umbrella on the bus."

I had hoped the children had forgotten the little episode, which occurred a few weeks ago in Brixton. It was raining heavily, and my umbrella had broken. About to board a bus home with the boys, I was concerned that we would be soaked on the short walk between bus stop and home at the other end, so I made the children come with me to a crowded, chaotic Poundland to buy a cheap umbrella. Of course I promptly left it on the bus - so my one pound brolly was used for all of 30 seconds. Naturally, I made the boys promise not to tell Daddy that Mummy had been so stupid.

Anyway - I couldn't argue with the sentence. It's both factually and grammatically correct. But I'm going to have to watch out with this one.