SO HELP ME, CHILD, YOU WILL NOT SHAME ME ON THIS ONE

So, you may recall a while back, Chago's dramatic rendition of his SuperBook, Rosita Amor. And if you don't, you can catch up on that here.

Well, Saia brought home Ms. Amor on Monday, and has spent the entire week working on it. We've never spent more than two days on a book before, but this one really has her tongue-tied. Literally.

The worst of it surrounds the poor little grocery store owner, Pedro. In Spanish, it's pronounced "PEH-drrro." In Anglicized Spanish, it's often mispronounced "PAY-droe."

But don't get me started on that one.

And no, we don't speak Spanish on a regular basis in our home. The kids have a healthy handful of Spanish words in their vocabulary, but don't speak in sentences yet. And while they do seem to understand my Spanish rants when I'm going off on them for drawing on the bathroom wall with crayon -- again -- they may never learn to fully appreciate those pathetically ridiculous Tex-Mex Word of the Day jokes, like...

Tex-Mex Word of the Day: July
Ju told me ju were going to go to da storr forr me, but july. Julyer!!

For instance.

But they will not, WILL NOT, go to school mispronouncing Spanish names, at a bare minimum!!! And it's not that she can't roll her Rs, because she's got two in her own last name, for crissakes! And it's not that she can't pronounce names that are unfamiliar to her, because the majority of her class is of Indian and/or Chinese decent, and she knows each and every one of them, and their parents, by first and last name!

But, for our Pedro, there just seems to be no mercy.

For the life of me, no matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to get her to say his name correctly. So, out of sheer embarrassment, I've kept the book home -- again. And we'll work on it throughout the entire weekend. And that damn book will not return to school with her until poor Pedro -- and my entire Mexican American lineage -- is avenged -- because I can't, just can't, send her to school so long as she continues to call Pedro, "perro" (dog) or the latest malapropism, "pedo" (fart).