Pirates and Sandboxes

Today, while the girls were napping, Samuel and I were having some good one-on-one time in the sandbox. He was digging a hole with a hoe and he said, "Mommy, I'm like a pirate!" Hmmm, I couldn't quite connect the dots so I inquired further, "How are you like a pirate?" Samuel said, "I'm digging a hole with my hoe!" Still confused and not really sure why he thought pirates dug holes with hoes, I said, "Where did you learn that pirates did that?" He said, "In Hopey's book that we read before her night time!" We did just read a book before Hope's nap about Spot and how he pretended to be a pirate but I still couldn't quite figure out why in the world he thought he was a pirate. I mulled this over for the rest of the day but it wasn't until I was telling Daryl about it that things clicked in my head. In the book that we read, when Spot was pretending to be a pirate, he says "Yo-ho-ho I'm a pirate, king of the high seas!" Yo-ho-ho? A hoe for digging a hole. Ho? Hoe? Definitely sound the same and have the same meaning to my sweet 2 year old boy!