Looking over his spelling book, Jacob hits on a page on which he was supposed to write something on the subject: "What's special about me". He looks at the line of his own printing and asks me what it says. I remember the night he wrote it. It was a head to head night, too late to still be working on homework, both of us tired. Jacob came up with his line and would not budge, till finally I gave in, thinking I was making it worse by fighting over it, remembering times when I was young and wrote out similar declarations as if it was somehow necessary sometimes. So I spelled it out for him to write.

I read it out for him now, "I am an idiot," it says.

"Oh," he says, "yeah. My teacher was asking me about this. She wanted to know who helped me spell it."

Oh yeah, looking good.