Reading is FunDUHmental

I'm glad I already know English, and how to read. I'm glad I learned it when I still had a super-absorbent-spongelike-little-kid-brain as opposed to the porous-yet-non-absorbent-scattered-Mommy-brain I possess today. (Case in point: I totally just had to Google how to spell "possess" because it looked weird.)

Colin is learning to read and write, and until I had to help him, I had no idea how confusing the English language must be. Yesterday he was making me a word search on a piece of paper, and I came across the same mysterious word he put on a grocery list not too long ago: TIT. It led into a rather frustrating exchange.

"Colin, what's this T-I-T say?"

"It says 'tight,' Mommy."

"Oh, okay. You know, 'tight' is spelled in a very funny way: it has a G-H in the middle. T-I-G-H-T."

He screwed up his face to contemplate it, so I further clarified: "Any time you see an I-G-H-T, it makes the 'ite' sound."

He brightened. "So kite has an I-G-H-T?"

Um.

"Well, no, son ... kite is actually spelled K-I-T-E. But lots of other words -"

"Write?"

"No, write has an I-T-E like kite, not an I-G-H-T."

"White?"

Uhhh ... hmmm. Don't even get me started on what happened when we came across the word "eight."

This isn't the first time I've attempted (poorly) to explain something stupid and confusing about the way our words work. Like why we don't pronounce the k in "know" or "knee" or the b in "lamb" or "comb." Or why in most words, an S-H makes the "sh" sound ... but in words like "vacation" or "action," it's the T-I that sounds like "sh." Or why we say "phone," but not "phork" or "pheelings."

Seriously, what?

If I didn't already know English, I'd be like, "Screw this. I'm speaking Portugese from now on."

It's a good thing he's a smart little dude. It's not like I'm helping him out much.